Page 19 - Focus on REPRODUCTION SEP 2015

IN PROFILE
Embryologist Cristina Magli, whose lab in Bologna was among the first to test the potential of PGS, will be the next chair of ESHRE’s SIG and Task Force Committee. Here, she talks to Focus on Reproduction about PGS and the impact on embryology of legislation in Italy . . . and about plans for ESHRE’s SIGs and Task Forces.
Carrying on regardless
PGS? I’m still a believer . . . . But not every technique is good for everyone. Not every approach suits every patient.
So it was a heavy blow?
Yes, at the time PGS was a kind of mission for us. I always believed it would work, even when we began in 1993, when no-one really knew what it was. And to be honest I still believe it works, provided it’s done in the proper way. But then all those opportunities were taken away from us. We couldn’t work on the embryo, so we concentrated on the first polar body as an alternative. We couldn’t work on the second polar body because it’s extruded after fertilisation. Don’t forget that Law 40 also affected our PGD for single gene disorders, and that was very difficult too, having to tell our patients, sorry, we cannot help you. We were also not allowed to grow more than three embryos, so we had to look at oocyte freezing as well.
So to continue your PGS and PGD work, you had to go abroad. How did that work? We got most help from Stephan Gordts and Rudi Campo in Leuven and that’s where we treated most of our PGS and PGD patients. We did a lot of cycles there and Leuven really collaborated with us. I passed on to them all I knew about PGS and PGD, so it was a real exchange. We also set up a centre in Lugano, in the Italian quarter of Switzerland. PGD and PGS on embryos were still not allowed in Switzerland, but it
FoR: You have been lab director with Gianaroli’s group in Bologna for many years, and one of the first to provide some proof of principle for embryo selection by PGS. In 2004 your programme was brought to an abrupt halt when the Italian parliament passed its infamous Law 40. What effect did that have on you?
Magli: It was dramatic. Everything changed. The restrictions were so many, it was as if everything you’d studied for so many years, everything you’d gained in experience counted
for nothing. Our hands were tied and we were now being told what to do. It was extremely stressful, very depressing.
And have those feelings persisted?
It all happened so quickly, and our reactions were very intense to begin with. We were left wondering what to do and how to react. So we had to really concentrate our thoughts and think how to redirect our efforts. Our first thought was to concentrate on the oocyte - oocyte physiology, morphology and chromosome analysis of the first polar body.
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