By Shakiba Ghasemi.
The second Café Scientifique was organized at Tampereen lyseon lukio on Tuesday the 14th of December 2021. The invited speaker for the Café Scientifique for December was Julia Stein, who is a former student of Tampereen lyseon lukio, and she received her IB Diploma in 2016. After graduating from the IB, Stein studied Medical Sciences at the University of Edinburgh where she received her degree in Bachelor of Science with honors. Stein has also completed a degree in Master of Research in Reproductive Sciences and Women’s Health at the University College of London. According to Julia, 1 in 6 couples experience infertility, however, with the help of new and intriguing procedures, such as IVF treatment – in vitro fertilization – these children wanting couples can achieve their dreams of having their own children. During the event, Stein explained how merging compatible therapies and factual medicine in IVF treatment affects the interpretation of data and how it affects the patient receiving IVF treatment.
The audience members as well as the hosts were keen on asking Stein questions after the presentation, such as what Julia considers is the most interesting thing she has studied after the IB. She responded to this saying that it was the Medical Sciences she studied in the University of Edinburgh. She also mentioned that she enjoyed working in the laboratory as an embryologist. During the interview, Stein revealed the reason why she chose to investigate more about in vitro fertilization treatments, saying that her supervisor, who was a part of the National Health Service board, was an active participant in trying to improve IVF treatment techniques for woman of all ages. For this reason, Stein was also encouraged to explore more about the matter. Julia expressed her desire to work in this field in the future as well, however, as of now she is working in a company who provides the materials required for clinical trials.
Julia voiced her concerns about the quality of the IVF treatments worsening if the competition becomes too high, saying that since the in vitro fertilization treatments are not regulated in the UK, there can be some cutbacks during the procedures. Julia also revealed the fact that patients are willing to pay any sum to receive the best IVF treatment, even though there is only a 20 – 35% chance of it actually working, for women in their early 20’s until their late 30’s. She showed some statistics and guarantees made by some clinical websites wherein they only share the positive monoliteral views on getting the treatment, making their websites seem biased and incomprehensive. However, since in vitro fertilization treatments do not require the patient to take any hormones which can have long-term effects on their body, patients consider this treatment safe and favor it above all other procedures. IVF treatment is considered as one of the best treatment methods available as of now, so couples like to use this method in being able to conceive their own child.
A big thank you to Julia Stein for her presentation and the time she took to answer the questions about her interesting topic!
The next Café Scientifique will be on the 18th of January 2022 about sustainable packaging with Ronak Ziaee. See you next year!
© Sari Kiiski; Julia Stein was interviewed by Shakiba Ghasemi and Helmi Lehtonen at Tampereen lyseon lukio.