RBMONLINE DIGEST

I hope that you all had a lovely Summer and I am sure that many of you were busy attending congresses. RBMOnline attended this year’s ESHRE conference and the entire team enjoyed the trip to Geneva. It was fantastic to see so many of our authors and editors there and we look forward to seeing you there again next year. Just before the ESHRE meeting the new yearly impact factors were released and we can now proudly announce that the impact factor of our journal has risen above 3. Hence RBMOnline has secured itself a position in the top category of both science fields Reproductive Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

As we announced earlier this year, RBMOnline has a new partnership with COGI and we will have a special session with the winner of the 2016 Robert G Edwards Prize presenting their work at the 25th COGI Congress in Vienna. Moreover, the best of COGI papers will be published separately in RBMOnline.

It is also good to know that the RBMOnline social media presence continues to grow which will keep you up to date with our latest papers, Hot Topics and news by following @RBMOnline. We now have over 200 followers; why not join in the discussion of the latest papers?

Best wishes,

Bart FauserChief Editor RBMOnline

Welcome

Winner of Robert G. Edwards Prize

New Addition to Editorial Team

The editors of Reproductive BioMedicine Online are pleased to announce the winner of the 2016 Robert G. Edwards Prize Paper Award for the best paper published in the journal in that year.

Congratulations to Julia C Eggers, Valentina Martino, Rolland Reinbold, Sebastian D Schäfer, Ludwig Kiesel, Anna Starzinski-Powitz, Andreas N Schüring, Björn Kemper, Burkhard Greve, Martin Götte for their winning paper: microRNA miR-200b affects proliferation, invasiveness and stemness of endometriotic cells by targeting ZEB1, ZEB2 and KLF4

This award was established by Elsevier Ltd. in 2010 for the purpose of recognizing excellence in our field of study, and is awarded annually. All original research articles published in journal volumes 32 and 33 (excluding supplements) have been considered for this prize.

Professor Richard Anderson recently joined the editorial team and brings with him a wealth of experience and expertise. His current research activity is predominantly in both clinical and laboratory studies in ovarian development and function after cancer, and in male contraception. He has served as an Associate Editor for three of the ESHRE human reproduction journals and together with the rest of the Editorial team he hopes to contribute to make RBMOnline a stand-out journal for novel and high-quality research in the field.

Hot Topics

Reproductive BioMedicine and Society Online – Open Access

The effect of endometrial scratch on natural-cycle cryopreserved embryo transfer outcomes: a randomized controlled studyJennifer Sze Man Mak, Cathy Hoi Sze Chung, Jacqueline Pui Wah Chung *, Grace Wing Shan Kong, Sotirios H Saravelos, Lai Ping Cheung, Tin-Chiu LiThe first reported study looking at the effect of endometrial scratch (ES) on frozen embryo transfer (FET) in a natural cycle has found that ES has no beneficial effect in an unselected group of women. The double-blind, randomised control study recruited 229 patients who had IVF and FET in a natural cycle. 115 women received ES using a pipelle whilst 114 received endocervical manipulation as a control. There was no significant difference in implantation rate, pregnancy rate, ongoing pregnancy rate or live birth rate between the two groups. A recent Cochrane Review found a favourable effect of ES with an increase in clinical pregnancy rate based on pooled results from 13 randomised controlled trials. However, all of these studies used fresh embryo transfer cycles.

Obstetric and perinatal outcomes of singletons after single blastocyst transfer: is there any difference according to blastocyst morphology?Céline Bouillon, Noémie Celton, Sandra Kassem, Cynthia Frapsauce, Fabrice GuérifA study spanning over 8 years examining 799 singleton pregnancies conceived through IVF found that even when lower quality day 5 blastocysts were transferred, there appeared to be no effect on either obstetric or perinatal outcomes. This suggests that whilst morphology is important in achieving a pregnancy, once a pregnancy has been established, morphology is essentially irrelevant. Blastocysts were divided into 4 groups: Good morphology, fair morphology, poor morphology and early blastocyst (slow development). The rates of miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, therapeutic abortion, intrauterine fetal demise and live birth were similar across all groups as were instances of diabetes, pre-eclampsia, growth retardation and other obstetric complications. Perinatal outcomes such as birthweight, birth length and congenital malformations were also almost identical across all groups.

Chimeras intended for human gamete production: an ethical alternative?César Palacios-GonzálezScientists should not be prevented from creating human-animal chimeras to produce human eggs for research. The commentary examines four of the ethical arguments used against the creation of these chimeras to produce eggs for research and finds that none of these arguments are strong enough for it not to be moral to use this technique. The four ethical arguments examined are: human dignity would be violated; the value of human gametes would be debased, human gametes would be seen as only possessing instrumental value; there would be the possibility of pregnancies arising from the gametes of the human-chimaeras; and the chimeric animal’s welfare would suffer disproportionate to the benefits. Countering these objections is the benefit that currently there is a shortage of human eggs for research and using these chimeras would enable valuable research into reproduction.

A selected recent paper from Reproductive BioMedicine and Society Online examines how the British press represented Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards in the story of the birth of the first ‘test-tube baby’, Louise Brown. ‘The men who made the breakthrough’: How the British press represented Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards in 1978