Chengdu City in the southwestern China province of Sichuan is seeking volunteers to try a state-of-the-art technology that can freeze and store germ cells for women who may choose to have a baby in the future.

"We plan to put the technology into clinical use and we'll exempt some expenses for the first woman who tries it," said Dr. Liu Weixin, a researcher with the city's institute for family planning technologies.

Liu said ideal applicants should be under 27 years of age and have to undergo thorough checkups to ensure they are free from chromosome abnormality or infectious diseases such as AIDS, syphilis or hepatitis B.

Those who are eligible for the clinical test will take pills prescribed by the researchers to prompt ovulation, and the germ cells will be dehydrated, frozen and kept in liquid nitrogen at minus 196 degrees Celsius.

When these women want to have babies, or when other women need donor cells, doctors would unfreeze and incubate the frozen cells for impregnation.

Dr. Liu said the market price of this service was yet to be decided, but predicted it would be higher than the freezing of sperm and embryos because more complicated technologies are involved.

But the technologies are mature enough to be used on humans because the institute has repeatedly tried it on mice over the past two years, said Huang Ping, head of the institute.

Researchers have stored the mice's germ cells in six jars of liquid nitrogen at minus 196 degrees Celsius, and carefully taken notes on each sample to find out how much the frozen period affects the cells' revival.

"We have just bought a set of new equipment from Germany, and all the three members of our infertility research lab are confident the technology will work out on humans," said Huang.

She said the technology had come as a blessing for women who suffer from congenital sterility and ovarian failure, as well as those who are too occupied with their work and keep postponing having a baby.

This group of women will soon be getting donors' germ cells free of charge from the country's first human germ cell bank, which is under construction at the No. 1 Hospital affiliated to Peking University, one of the prestigious institutions of higher learning in China.

An earlier report said the Beijing-based germ cell bank will mainly target four groups of women, namely those who wish to postpone motherhood, those who work in a hazardous environment, those who are going to undergo ovariectomy and radiotherapy, and mothers who are worried their only children might chance upon unexpected accidents.

The bank has vowed it will record clearly the blood type, color of skin, age, personal character, educational background and the place of residence of germ cell donors to prevent inbreeding and birth deficiencies.

But no information is available as to when the bank will go into operation or how much it will cost to store a germ cell.

The Chinese Ministry of Health has ruled that germ cell donors must undergo a strict medical checkup and each donor can only provide germ cells for five women. Germ cell sales are banned.

(Xinhua News Agency April 2, 2004)