Protocols for Maturing and Freezing Monkey Oocytes

Principal Investigator: Professor Catherine VandeVoort, PhD

Funding for the project: National Institute of Health, R01

The general objective of this project is to develop protocols for production of developmentally competent in vitro matured nonhuman primate oocytes and cryopreservation methods for the long-term storage of nonhuman primate oocytes.  Successful completion of this project would allow more efficient use of limited primate resources to improve the availability of oocytes for studies on of early embryo development, fertilization, transgenics and embryonic stem cell lines.  These techniques will also provide basic research for improvements in human in vitro oocyte maturation.