#119 Infertility Series: Lauren Isley on Fertility Genetic Counseling

This episode is kicking off a series about infertility. The launch of this series is coinciding with infertility awareness week, April 19-25th, 2020. Over the next few episodes of DNA Today, we will be talking to experts in fertility these include genetic counselors, a couple who went through IVF, even filmmakers who produced a science fiction movie about fertility.

Sponsoring the series is LetsGetChecked, check out their home testing kits including fertility, sexual health and others. Receive your own kit for 20% off by using code “DNAToday”.

Currently 7.3 million Americans are facing infertility, and we wanted to bring awareness to this, but also education by having these conversations to learn about the science and genetic side, but also the patient side and hearing how infertility has impacted people’s lives and hearing their perspective. So many excited guests coming up!

The first guest to launch this series is Lauren Isley, who is a genetic counselor that specializes in fertility and assisted reproductive technologies, known as ART for short. She is a Clinical Science Liaison at Generate Life Sciences (Formerly California Cryobank Life Sciences), a company that provides reproductive tissue and donor gamete services as well as newborn stem cell storage. Lauren is the Chair Elect of the Genetic Counseling Professional Group of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) and former chair of the ART/Infertility SIG of NSGC. Lauren has a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology from the University of Missouri. She went on to earn her Masters of Science in genetic counseling from Wayne State University.

On This Episode We Discuss:

Roles of a Genetic Counselor in Fertility

Fertility Technology Options

Carrier Screening

In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)

Types of Preimplantation Genetic Testing (PGT M, SR, A)

Information and Limits of PGTs

Egg and Sperm Freezing/Donating

Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) genetic testing impact on gamete donation

Next episode we will be continuing this infertility series. Again infertility awareness week is April 19-25th, 2020. You can learn more by going to RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association. They are a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that all people challenged in their family building journey reach resolution through being empowered by knowledge, supported by community, united by advocacy, and inspired to act. Their website is resolve.org.

You can also check out this blog post from the National Society of Genetic Counselors, “How Genetics Affects Infertility and Miscarriage”.

Stay tuned for the next new episode of DNA Today’s infertility series on April 17th, 2020. New episodes are released on the first Friday of the month with some bonus episodes thrown in there. See what else I am up to on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and iTunes. Questions/inquiries can be sent to info@DNApodcast.com.