Diana Thomas
The World Egg Bank, USA
Title: Complexities of Donor Egg Banking and The World Eggs Bank’s Solutions
Biography
Biography: Diana Thomas
Abstract
Egg donation has been offered through IVF clinics in the US since the 1980s, but at a rare and infrequent rate. The original technology used for egg donors was difficult for both the egg donors and the recipients. The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) first began reporting egg donation cycles in 1996, the year I had my first child through egg donation, making my son one of the first 100 babies born from donor eggs in the US. In 2004, The World Egg Bank opened the first ‘commercial’ and independent egg bank in the world. By 2009, we shifted from slow freeze to vitrification technology, with Dr. Masashige Kuwayama’s vitrification and warming technology. This has allowed egg banking to become a simpler process for the recipients, making it a more popular choice for intended parents. With the increase of fertility clinics operating their own egg banks the search for a donor has become less complicated. However, it still raises the question about quality and consistency.
The World Egg Bank’s model is unique amongst all other egg banks.
§ We manage all donor processes from our own state of the art medical facility. Our centralized model ensures we conduct all donor screening, stimulation, retrievals, and ova vitrification with optimized protocols and experienced laboratory systems and staff in our singular location. We do not run a multi-service infertility practice, nor do we hire outside clinics to manage donor cycles, perform retrieval or vitrify our ova.
§ Our focus is entirely on providing quality donor ova. We have the highest consistent quality banked donor ova available in the US because all donor processes are managed by the same highly trained staff.
§ We have been shipping donor ova since 2004 and have been recruiting and screening donors for more than 23 years.
§ We support the recipient’s clinic at the time of first ova warming by sending one of our highly-trained embryologists to verify and assist with our protocols, at our expense.
§ We have a large roster of over 400 donors with thousands of ova already banked, ready to ship.
§ Our donors meet FDA, HFEA (UK), Canadian and Australian compliance requirements. Our laboratory is nationally certified, including specific requirements set by the states of New York and California.
§ We are science driven. Our stimulation protocols, vitrification technique, shipping system, and all related technical and operational systems are monitored to optimize outcomes.
§ The vitrified ova are shipped directly from our laboratory to any clinic laboratory that can accept imported ova, where the clinic will perform the warming, ICSI, culture, transfer, and embryo cryopreservation.