100 | SEPTEMBER 26 • 2019 

Health | Israel’s role

Pressing Pause?
Study could extend biological clock.
W

hen age 30 
approaches, many 
women start paying 
attention to their biological 
clocks and their chances to 
conceive. Indeed, human eggs 
begin to mature from the 
onset of a woman’
s first period 
(usually between ages 10-15). 
As years pass, the eggs age and 
their quality decreases.
“The critical age is 35,” said 
Dr. Yonatan Tzur, a research-
er at the Hebrew University 
of Jerusalem’
s Genetic 
Department, in a phone inter-
view with the Times of Israel. 
“From then on, the quality 
of eggs drops fast,” making it 
much harder for women to 
conceive. Older egg cells are 
also the main cause of birth 
defects and miscarriages.
While in vitro fertilization 
(IVF) techniques allow doc-
tors to select the best eggs, 
women older than 35 have 
a harder time producing a 
healthy baby with their own 
eggs and, for women 40 
years or older, the success of 
IVF goes down significantly, 
prompting women to use 
donor eggs.
This, along with the fact 
the average age of first-time 
mothers in the Western world 
is increasing sharply, makes 
finding a way to slow down egg 
maturation crucial.
What if women could press 
pause on their biological clocks? 
What if there were a way to 
delay the deterioration of egg 
quality? Tzur and his team 

embarked on a quest to find 
the mechanisms that control 
ovarian development and egg 
cell aging, the Times of Israel 
story said. 
In a study published in the 
scientific journal Genetics, 
Tsur and associate Dr. Hanna 
Achache, along with scientists 
at Harvard Medical School, say 
they have discovered the switch 
that may do just this — in 
roundworms.
They are hopeful this break-
through may help women 
extend their fertility windows 
and maintain high egg quality 
into their 30s and 40s.
In studying the worms, they 
found a biochemical MAPK 
switch, which has a role in 
activating or switching off var-
ious developmental processes; 
humans also have the switch, 
Achache said. “But we don’
t 
know when it turns on and off 
and what activates this,” so the 
research is still at a very early 
stage.
Once the equivalent of the 
activator ogr-2 gene found in 
worms to control the rhythm 
of egg maturation is found in 
humans, she said, perhaps a 
food additive could be devised 
that increases its activity. 
Or during IVF procedures, 
the MAPK switch could be 
manipulated to make it more 
receptive to sperm, just like a 
younger egg is, she said. This 
could improve women’
s chances 
of having healthy babies as they 
get older. 

Dr. Hanna Achache 
and Dr. Yonatan Tzur

AG/HEBREW UNIVERSITY

 

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