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Abstract

The preservation of mammalian embryos at low temperatures first became a reality in 1972 when mouse embryos were shown to survive freezing to temperatures as low as -269° C and to become normal fertile offspring after transfer to the uterus of pseudopregnant foster mothers (Whittingham, Leibo and Mazur 1972). Since that time, preimplantation embryos from a wide range of laboratory and domestic animals have been stored successfully in the frozen state (see Whittingham and Wood 1984, for current bibliography on low temperature storage of mammalian embryos). With the advent of techniques for fertilising and culturing human oocytes in vitro it was immediately foreseen that embryo storage would enhance clinical in vitro fertilisation and embryo transfer procedures (Edwards and Steptoe 1977; Whittingham 1979).

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© 1987 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Whittingham, D.G. (1987). Human Oocyte and Embryo Freezing. In: Feichtinger, W., Kemeter, P. (eds) Future Aspects in Human In Vitro Fertilization. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-71412-2_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-71412-2_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-71414-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-71412-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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