Strategic resilience in human performance in the context of science and education - perspective.

Introduction: Special situations that jeopardize the internal and external security for communities are increasing in their frequency and complexity. This creates complicated challenges for individuals, governments and humanity. National and international strategies are being developed that focus on the resilience and coping of all first responders during these extreme stress states.

Follicular growth after xenotransplantation of cryopreserved/thawed human ovarian tissue in SCID mice: dynamics and molecular aspects.

Purpose: To study the influence of xenotransplantation on follicular recruitment and growth in cryopreserved/thawed human ovarian tissue.

Method: Two 3-mm pieces of cryopreserved/thawed human ovarian tissue obtained from female cancer patients (n = 11) were xenotransplanted into a subcutaneous neck pouch of 6-week-old ovarectomized SCID mice (n = 33) for 4 (n = 18) and 12 (n = 15) weeks.

Result: Thirty-two out of 33 mice survived the entire observation periods.

Fertility preservation in cancer survivors.

Due to the increasing number of long-term cancer survivors, physicians of all specialties are confronted with the need to prevent side effects of the applied oncologic treatments. In the field of reproductive medicine fertility preservation has gained importance as most oncologic treatments have detrimental immediate or long-term impacts on male and female fertility. The American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, as well as the recently founded International Society for Fertility Preservation propose several established and investigational options for fertility preservation.

Novel dynamic culture system to support initiation of primordial follicle growth in prepubertal mouse ovaries.

Objective: To evaluate the impact of dynamic in vitro culture on initiation of early follicular growth in prepubertal mouse ovaries.

Design: Ovaries from 8-day-old BALB/c mice were cultured either in a dynamic system (n=28) or in a static system (n=20) for 4 days. Uncultured 8-day-old (n=9) or 12-day-old (n=17) ovaries served as baseline or in vivo controls, respectively.

Efficacy of a sperm-selection chamber in terms of morphology, aneuploidy and DNA packaging.

Since most current techniques analysing spermatozoa will inevitably exclude these gametes from further use, attempts have been made to enrich semen samples with physiological spermatozoa with good prognosis using special sperm-processing methods. A particular sperm-selection chamber, called the Zech-selector, was found to be effective in completely eliminating spermatozoa with DNA strand breaks. The aim of this study was to further analyse the subgroup of spermatozoa accumulated using the Zech-selector.