Reproductive Biology

You are welcome to Reproductive Biology, the biology of reproduction in humans. In a general sense reproduction is one of the most important concepts in biology: it means making a copy, a likeness, and thereby providing for the continued existence of species. Although reproduction is often considered solely in terms of the production of offspring in animals and plants, the more general meaning has far greater significance to living organisms.

One of the first characteristics of life that emerged in primeval times must have been the ability of some primitive chemical system to make copies of itself. Although organisms are often thought of only as adults, and reproduction is considered to be the formation of a new adult resembling the adult of the previous generation, a living organism, in reality, is an organism for its entire life cycle, from fertilized egg to adult, not for just one short part of that cycle. Reproduction, in these terms, is not just a stage in the life history of an organism but the organism's entire history.

It has been pointed out that only the DNA of a cell is capable of replicating itself, and even that replication process requires specific enzymes that were themselves formed from DNA. Thus, the reproduction of all living forms must be considered in relation to time; what is reproduced is a series of copies that, like the sequence of individual frames of a motion picture, change through time in an exact and orderly fashion. In this course we shall be unraveling factors behind conjoined twins, disease conditions and lifestyles that enhances fertility.

we shall attempt to answer questions such as why the need for reproduction. Why should a woman give birth early . And lots more.