A questionnaire based survey was done to assess the views of fertile individuals, infertile individuals, egg donors and recipients towards gamete donation. The survey showed that fertile individuals were significantly less inclined towards the use of donated eggs in research and treatment, compared to infertile individuals. Acceptability of gamete donation was found to be very high in all groups regardless of their fertility, but the majority of individuals, whether fertile or infertile, were opposed to the use of fetal and cadaveric sources of obtaining eggs. The effect of modifications of the freeze-thaw process was investigated in the mouse model. It was seen that slight modifications of the slow freeze protocol affected survival rates and that ultrarapid freezing achieved better survival rates than slow freezing. Human oocyte cryopreservation was performed using a slow freeze-rapid thaw protocol. In total, 34.4% of oocytes survived cryopreservation and these were randomly allocated for fertilisation by conventional <I>in vitro</I> fertilisation (IVF) or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). Resulting embryos were spread for chromosomal analysis. ICSI significantly improved the rates of normal fertilisation (43.2% versus 2.7%) compared to IVF (P<0.001). A normal diploid karyotype was achieved by ICSI. These studies show that oocyte donation is acceptable to the majority of both fertile and infertile individuals. Further research is required to improve the methods of oocyte cryopreservation. Once the techniques of cryopreservation have been established, ICSI may successfully be applied to enhance subsequent fertilisation rates.