Revisiting Reproduction: What a difference a gene makes

Much can go wrong during the nine-month journey from single cell to birth—with infertility stopping the process as it begins and premature birth completing it before its time. These two major problems in reproductive biology are examined by Bruce D. Murphy, Yasushi Hirota, Jeeyeon Cha and Sudhansu K. Dey. In 'Bench to Bedside', Murphy analyzes studies showing how a single gene, FOXL2, may mediate many processes required for fertility. In 'Bedside to Bench', Dey and colleagues take a look at conflicting clinical findings testing progesterone as a therapy for premature birth: they conclude that much more work needs to be done at the bench, particularly in developing mouse models of parturition, before clinicians can successfully intervene to prevent birth from occurring prematurely.