Lower Cost, Better Results, World Renowned Doctor.

Infertile patients cannot afford to wait for treatment while their eggs get older.

Dr. Sherman Silber, Infertility Center of St. Louis, is offering video consultations for patients who need to plan now for their treatment while stay-at-home orders are in place. He is talking to and evaluating patients in their home to comply with social distancing measures.

Dr. Silber is discovering that patients actually prefer this method of telemedicine consultation over the conventional office visit. Patients have conveyed that “it is so much more convenient and less stressful” to have a telemedicine personal consultation than to take a day off from work to travel to the doctor’s office and sit with other nervous patients in the waiting room.

The COVID-19 pandemic is thus changing much of the way we will do things in the future, and for the better. “Our patients are surprisingly much happier with this approach. Of course, at some point we need to perform hands on treatment. But with this new manner of seeing patients, we can come to the right diagnosis and treatment plan for most patients more efficiently, quickly, and painlessly, with no loss of personal one-on-one communication.” This is a very welcome new era of telemedicine that has been forced on us by the current difficult times.

Menu
Phone +1 (314) 576-1400
The Infertility Center of St. Louis
The Infertility Center of St. Louis
About Dr. Silber
Patient Comments
X

Dr. Silber on In-Vitro Maturation & Lab-Made Eggs for Future Fertility – ESHRE 2025

At the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) meeting in Paris, Dr. Sherman J. Silber outlined two breakthrough technologies poised to redefine “hopeless” fertility cases. The first targets patients who must undergo ovary removal—often ahead of chemotherapy. Until now, cryopreserved ovarian tissue was re-implanted years later to restore hormone function and natural fertility, but that pathway can risk re-introducing malignant cells. Silber’s team now excises immature follicles from the removed ovary, cultures them through every growth stage entirely in vitro, and retrieves mature, IVF-ready eggs. Because no hormonal stimulation is required, chemotherapy can start immediately, and the patient keeps full control of her cancer treatment schedule.

The second advance pushes even further: leveraging landmark mouse experiments that transformed skin fibroblasts into viable oocytes, Silber’s lab is generating human primordial germ cells (PGCs) from tiny skin biopsies of women over 55—long past natural reproductive age. These PGCs carry the woman’s own DNA and are being coaxed toward mature oocytes through step-wise signaling cues in a specialized culture system. Based on current progress, researchers project that fully functional human eggs could be ready for fertilization within six years, with clinical trials and regulatory clearance possibly five years beyond that.

If realized, the technology would enable women who have completely exhausted their follicle pool—because of age, premature ovarian insufficiency, or aggressive cancer therapy—to conceive genetically related children without donor eggs. Combining in vitro follicle maturation from preserved ovarian tissue with skin-to-egg cellular reprogramming, Dr. Silber envisions a future where “zero eggs” no longer means zero hope. The Paris presentation signals a paradigm shift: biological parenthood may soon be attainable for virtually every woman, regardless of age or medical history.