EMJ Weekly News Round-Up: 12th December

Jack Redden
Reporter, European Medical Journal
@EMGJackRedden

Keeping you up to date with the latest news, we summarise a selection of stories from us here at EMJ and from across the web that you might have missed during the week:

Rock Music Makes Men Worse at Board Games
Source: European Medical Journal. Published: Tuesday 13^th December.
A new and slightly less than serious study carried out has found that men’s skills while playing the board game Operation, was made worse when they were made to listen to rock music. Operation is a childhood classic that involves using a pair of tweezers to remove various body parts from a pretend patient without touching the metal sides and setting off the buzzer. For the study, 352 men and women were invited to play the game while listening to either classical music by Mozart, rock music by AC/DC, or the sounds of an operating theatre. The researchers behind the study wanted to see what effect listening to music would have for members of the public who had no prior surgical training.

Baby Born to Woman Who Had Her Embryo Frozen Aged Nine
Source: BBC. Published: Wednesday 14^th December.
This is the news that doctors in London have been able to restore the fertility of a 24-year-old woman using ovarian tissue frozen when she was a child. Moaza Al Matrooshi has become the first woman ever to have a baby using an ovary frozen before the start of puberty. Moaza had previously undergone chemotherapy to treat an inherited blood disorder. The treatment damaged her ovaries and so, when she was nine years old, doctors removed her right ovary and froze the tissue.

Plans Unveiled for Dementia Research Institute at University College of London
Source: European Medical Journal. Published: Wednesday 14^th December.
The UK’s Medical Research Council (MRC) have announced that it has chosen University College London, London, UK, to become the hub of the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI). The MRC have also appointed Prof Bart de Strooper from the University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, as its director who will oversee the institute as it begins its research into the diagnosis and treatment of dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases. The MRC formed the institute with a joint investment of £250 million alongside British charities Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK.

Fertility Regulator Approves Licensing for Three-Parent Babies
Source: The Guardian. Published: Thursday 15^th December.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has announced its decision to start considering license applications from organisations to perform mitochondrial replacement therapy. This means the UK has now become the first country to license the experimental technique used to create three-parent babies. The Wellcome Centre for Mitochondrial Research at Newcastle University is ready to offer the therapy and, subject to obtaining a licence, hopes to help around 25 women each year who are at risk of passing mitochondrial mutations on to their children.