American couples who have had spare embryos frozen are much more willing to donate them for research than to discard them or to donate them to another couple, according to the first large-scale survey of people who have sought fertility treatments. The findings were published in Science this month.1

The survey, conducted by Anne Lyerly of the Duke University Medical Center and Ruth Faden of Johns Hopkins, was sent to 2210 patients who had received fertility treatments at nine fertility clinics across the country. Of the 1020 respondents who returned forms and had stored embryos, 49% said that they would donate embryos for medical research. The numbers changed depending on how the research was described. Respondents were more willing to donate embryos if the reasons specified purposes like making stem cells (60%), disease research (62%), or infertility research (61%). However, only 28% said they would be very or somewhat likely to donate embryos to improve cloning techniques for medical science. An even lower fraction (22%) said they would be likely to donate their embryos to another couple seeking fertility treatment.

Based on estimates of the numbers of existing cryopreserved embryos and the number of patients that could be reached after treatments, the authors speculate that 100,000 embryos could be available for research, of which 65,000 would survive the freezing and thawing process. Of these, 16,250 would be expected to develop to blastocysts, the hollow-ball shaped embryos generally used in attempts to create embryonic stem cell lines. A moderate success rate could result in perhaps as many as 3,000 new cell lines.

Barry Behr studies in vitro fertilization and embryo culture at Stanford University. He says the survey results are not surprising but still important, and may even increase the number of willing donors. “I think there are patients who are concerned about how they may be perceived,” he says. Knowing that such a large percentage are okay with donating early embryos for research might make such patients more comfortable doing so themselves.

According to the Science article, surveys in Australia and the United Kingdom have found that 30 to 54% of people are willing to donate their embryos for research.