New IVF device to improve fertility treatment

Scientists have developed a new technique to more effectively grow and screen embryos prior to implantation during in vitro fertilisation (IVF), leading to higher success rates and lower costs.
For couples struggling to conceive the old-fashioned way, in IVF provides an alternate route to starting a family.
When eggs are mixed with sperm in test tubes, the fertilised eggs grow into embryos that can be implanted inside the uterus of a woman who will carry them to term.
However, the procedure can be time-consuming, costly, and emotionally draining, often requiring multiple implantation cycles before a successful pregnancy.
To make IVF more efficient, a team of researchers from National Tsing Hua University and the National Health Research Institutes in Taiwan has developed a technique to more effectively grow and screen embryos prior to implantation.

Their results, published in the journal Biomicrofluidics, could facilitate more targeted selection of embryos to implant, lead to higher IVF success rates, and ultimately and lower its cost.

"It will lower the stress level of patients greatly if the number of IVF cycles and embryos transferred can be reduced while maintaining a promising outcome," said Chihchen Chen, the lead researcher on the project.
The researchers developed a way to culture mouse embryos in a plate of open microwells, spreading them out over the plate so each well contains just one or two embryos.
A layer of oil over the top prevents embryos from moving between microwells while still allowing a micropipette to penetrate into the system to eventually transfer the embryos to the uterus.

The microwell system gives each embryo its own microenvironment, allowing researchers to determine on a case-by-case basis which ones are the most viable.
"Embryos are very sensitive to their environments. Understanding the microenvironment of embryos allows us to promote the growth and minimise the epigenetic manipulation of embryos," Chen said.
Chen and her colleagues used high-resolution time-lapse imaging to track the individual development of the mouse embryos.
"Interestingly, embryos successfully develop into blastocysts even when they are cultured in very tiny microwells," Chen said.
The length of time that embryos took to reach the 4-cell and 8-cell stages accurately predicted their likelihood of later developing into blastocysts, providing a simple way to screen and select the most promising early-stage embryos for implantation.

A more targeted approach to implantation would reduce the number of eggs needed for the procedure, cutting both costs and time, researchers said.