When someone is ready to use their iced eggs for pregnancy, the tissue is thawed and then placed back into the body near any remaining ovarian tissue or where it was initially removed. Once locked away like Han Solo in carbonite according to a specific freezing formula, these slices of mostly the ovarian cortex - the outer layer of the ovary containing primordial follicles (aka immature eggs) - are kept under watchful eyes for several years in specially equipped storage facilities. Instead, “you prepare very thin slices that fit into test tubes fitted to specialized machines, and then you mix them with cryoprotectants.” He says that when you freeze a cell this way, ice crystals form and damage the delicate components of the cell. “You cannot just take the tissue and stick it in your fridge or freezer,” Oktay tells Inverse. The magic is in the anti-freeze solution and technologies, explains Kutluk Oktay, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Yale School of Medicine and medical director of Innovation Fertility Preservation and IVF. “It’s not something routinely done… except at a few centers… the best way to preserve fertility, it’s still egg freezing or oocyte preservation.” “The ASRM still considers ovarian tissue cryopreservation or freezing experimental,” Michelle Roach, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, tells Inverse. While there are other routes to preserve future fertility, such as egg or embryo freezing, these aren’t options for individuals who are too young, can’t delay their cancer treatment, or recently had chemotherapy. “Typically, in situations in which people with ovaries are about to undergo an extremely gonadotoxic therapy, such as certain types of chemotherapy, or are known to have a condition, usually genetic, in which they will go through menopause, either around or even before the time of puberty,” she explains. What is ovarian tissue freezing?Īlso known as ovarian tissue cryopreservation, it’s a still-experimental procedure where a portion of an individual’s ovarian tissue is surgically removed and then placed into cold storage for fertility preservation and future use, Elizabeth Rubin, an obstetrician-gynecologist and reproductive endocrinology fellow at Oregon Health and Science University, tells Inverse. But is it really possible to counter menopause - really, reproductive aging - with a simple tissue implant? The prospect of that feminine fountain of youth is much closer than you think, although it is questionable whether it’s even worth it. It’s a not-so-subtle dig at the booming anti-aging culture so dependent on making us feel bad for sprouting a crow’s feet or two. Such a technique, the twin insists, would have women preserving their own ovarian tissue when they’re brimming with estrogenic youthfulness and re-implanting on the rainy days of hot flashes and unsexy infirmity. “It’s a good example of something that we technically know how to do, but we’re limited by law, ethics, finances, bodies to experiment on.”Įlliot makes an even bolder claim that menopause could be prevented indefinitely through a real-life procedure called ovarian tissue freezing. We can delay the onset of it,” says Elliot at a dinner meeting with potential investors for the new birthing center in the second episode. In particular, Elliot Mantle, the more scientifically driven of the pair, boasts that menopause - a natural biological process marking the end of an individual’s reproductive years with the permanent cessation of menstruation - is as easily malleable as a magician bending a spoon. At the Mantle’s holistic birthing center, where babies and bioethical conundrums are very much thematic twins, uber-wealthy women want to use the Mantle’s intellect to skirt legal regulations around surrogacy and create bespoke services that promise everlasting youth and longevity. Warning: Spoilers for Dead Ringers below!Ĭhanneling the psychosexual thriller qualities of its cinematic progenitor, Dead Ringers rides its science hard at times. A gender-flipped, highly divergent remake of David Cronenberg’s 1988 film follows the complicated relationship of Elliot and Beverly Mantle (both played by Rachel Weisz), twin obstetrician-gynecologists whose brilliance tests the equilibrium of their bond, the lens through which the disequilibrium between women and their bodies is explored. In a post-Roe world, Amazon’s newest series Dead Ringers is unapologetically visceral and poignantly clinical.
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