PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

New IVF device may improve fertility treatment

Open microwell setup for screening embryos may allows researchers to select the most viable ones before implantation, potentially increasing IVF success rates

New IVF device may improve fertility treatment
2015-04-28
(Press-News.org) WASHINGTON, D.C., April 28, 2015--For couples struggling to conceive the old-fashioned way, in vitro fertilization (IVF) provides an alternate route to starting a family. When eggs are mixed with sperm in test tubes, the fertilized eggs to grow into embryos that can be implanted inside the uterus of a woman who will carry them to term.

IVF often works miracles for infertile couples, a fact for which its inventor won a Nobel Prize a few years ago. However, the procedure can be time-consuming, costly, and emotionally draining, often requiring multiple implantation cycles before a successful pregnancy. With the average cost of one cycle in the United States topping $12,000, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, IVF is out of reach of many couples.

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, from AIP Publishing, 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. "We are interested in understanding the essential needs of a developing embryo and aiming to improve embryo culture."

Often, embryos in IVF are pooled together in small drops of fluid and then transferred into the uterus. Culturing the embryos in groups is efficient, but it also makes the implantation less selective: lab technicians can't easily assess the viability of an individual embryo in the microdrop.

The Taiwanese researchers instead 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 minimize 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.

Furthermore, 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.

While these initial experiments were conducted on mouse embryos, Chen are her colleagues are hopeful that their work will someday have clinical relevance for humans. "After the experimental conditions have been optimized for human embryos and put through clinical validations, the techniques could be applied to IVF in humans," Chen said.

INFORMATION:

The article, "Microwells support high-resolution time-lapse imaging and development of preimplanted mouse embryos," is authored by Yu-Hsiang Chung, Yi-Hsing Hsiao, Wei-Lun Kao, Chia-Hsien Hsu, Da-Jeng Yao, and Chihchen Chen. It will appear in the journal Biomicrofluidics on April 28, 2015 (DOI: 10.1063/1.4918642). After that date, it can be accessed at: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/bmf/9/2/10.1063/1.4918642

ABOUT THE JOURNAL Biomicrofluidics publishes research highlighting fundamental physiochemical mechanisms associated with microfluidic and nanofluidic phenomena as well as novel microfluidic and nanofluidic techniques for diagnostic, medical, biological, pharmaceutical, environmental, and chemical applications. See: http://bmf.aip.org


[Attachments] See images for this press release:
New IVF device may improve fertility treatment

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Tracking exploding lithium-ion batteries in real-time

2015-04-28
What happens when lithium-ion batteries overheat and explode has been tracked inside and out for the first time by a UCL-led team using sophisticated 3D imaging. Understanding how Li-ion batteries fail and potentially cause a dangerous chain reaction of events is important for improving their design to make them safer to use and transport, say the scientists behind the study. Hundreds of millions of these rechargeable batteries are manufactured and transported each year as they are integral to modern living, powering mobile phones, laptops, cars and planes. Although ...

Scientists discover salty aquifer, previously unknown microbial habitat under Antarctica

Scientists discover salty aquifer, previously unknown microbial habitat under Antarctica
2015-04-28
HANOVER, N.H. - Using an airborne imaging system for the first time in Antarctica, scientists have discovered a vast network of unfrozen salty groundwater that may support previously unknown microbial life deep under the coldest, driest desert on our planet. The findings shed new light on ancient climate change on Earth and provide strong evidence that a similar briny aquifer could support microscopic life on Mars. The study appears in the journal Nature Communications. It is available through open access. A PDF of the study, photos and video also are available on request. ...

Two-week international diet swap shows potential effects of food on colon cancer risk

2015-04-28
PITTSBURGH, April 28, 2015 - African-Americans and Africans who swapped their typical diets for just two weeks similarly exchanged their respective risks of colon cancer as reflected by alterations of their gut bacteria, according to an international study led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine published online today in Nature Communications. Principal investigator Stephen O'Keefe, M.D., professor of medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, Pitt School of Medicine, observed while practicing in South Africa that his ...

UT research uncovers lakes, signs of life under Antarctica's dry valleys

UT research uncovers lakes, signs of life under Antarcticas dry valleys
2015-04-28
KNOXVILLE--Many view Antarctica as a frozen wasteland. Turns out there are hidden interconnected lakes underneath its dry valleys that could sustain life and shed light on ancient climate change. Jill Mikucki, a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, microbiology assistant professor, was part of a team that detected extensive salty groundwater networks in Antarctica using a novel airborne electromagnetic mapping sensor system called SkyTEM. The research, funded by the National Science Foundation, provides compelling evidence that the underground lakes and brine-saturated ...

Studies in cell transplantation show beneficial effects for variety of serious conditions

2015-04-28
Putnam Valley, NY. (April 28, 2015) - Five studies from the current special issue of Cell Transplantation 24(4) devoted to work presented at the 21st meeting of the American Society for Neural Therapy and Repair (ASNTR) in 2014, a society for scientists focused on understanding the causes of, and developing cell and gene therapy and biopharmaceuticals for neurological injury and disease, are currently freely available on-line at: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/ct/2015/00000024/00000004. MSCs promote improvement in patient with complete spinal cord injury Complete ...

Small high school reform boosts districtwide outcomes

2015-04-28
Creating small high schools improves outcomes for students in the overall school district - both in new small schools and existing larger schools - according to a study of New York City schools by researchers at New York University, Syracuse University, and Arizona State University. The findings, published in the April issue of Educational Researcher, help to answer questions of whether introducing small high schools comes at an expense to the rest of the school district. "Our findings suggest that there was real, meaningful improvement in New York City's high school ...

Northwestern medicine researchers solve mystery of deadly transplant infection

2015-04-28
CHICAGO, ILL. - When Harlan Dorbin passed away from a rare infection one month after his successful lung transplant surgery, his surgeon turned to Dorbin's sister and made a promise. "I told her I would get to the bottom of this," said Ankit Bharat, MD, a thoracic surgeon and surgical director of the Northwestern Medicine® lung transplant program. "It was a perfect operation yet this infection caused an abnormal buildup of ammonia that a person's body can't sustain. It's rare but it's almost always fatal. No one knew the cause or how to prevent it. This simply wasn't ...

Study: A minority of women seek health care after military sexual assault

Study: A minority of women seek health care after military sexual assault
2015-04-28
Despite growing public awareness of sexual assault of women during their military service and increased efforts by the Department of Defense to deter sexual crimes and encourage reporting and help-seeking, a Veterans Affairs study suggests most female service members who experience sexual assault are still unlikely to seek post-assault health care, at least in the short term. The study, published in Medical Care in April 2015, found that fewer than a third of sexually assaulted servicewomen sought such care. The low numbers are notable, say researchers, because women ...

Water could have been abundant in the first billion years

Water could have been abundant in the first billion years
2015-04-28
How soon after the Big Bang could water have existed? Not right away, because water molecules contain oxygen and oxygen had to be formed in the first stars. Then that oxygen had to disperse and unite with hydrogen in significant amounts. New theoretical work finds that despite these complications, water vapor could have been just as abundant in pockets of space a billion years after the Big Bang as it is today. "We looked at the chemistry within young molecular clouds containing a thousand times less oxygen than our Sun. To our surprise, we found we can get as much water ...

Scientists find new mutation that may lead to better diabetes medications and prevention

2015-04-28
LOS ANGELES (April 28, 2015) - An international team of scientists led by a Cedars-Sinai researcher has identified a new genetic mutation that appears to protect people from developing Type 2 diabetes. The finding could lead to the development of new drug therapies to treat about 26 million Type 2 diabetics in the United States who rely on insulin and oral medication to manage the life-threatening disease for which there is no cure. "We have a wonderful opportunity to personalize the treatment and prevention of this chronic disease," said Mark O. Goodarzi, MD, PhD, ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Revised diagnostic criteria for vascular cognitive impairment and dementia—The VasCog-2-WSO criteria

The ATREIDES program in search of lost exo-Neptunes

Ancient crop discovered in the Canary Islands thanks to archaeological DNA

Placental research may transform our understanding of autism and human brain evolution

Mapping the Universe, faster and with the same accuracy

Study isolates population aging as primary driver of musculoskeletal disorders

Designing a sulfur vacancy redox disruptor for photothermoelectric and cascade‑catalytic‑driven cuproptosis–ferroptosis–apoptosis therapy

Recent advances in dynamic biomacromolecular modifications and chemical interventions: Perspective from a Chinese chemical biology consortium

CRF and the Jon DeHaan Foundation to launch TCT AI Lab at TCT 2025

Canada’s fastest academic supercomputer is now online at SFU after $80m upgrades

Architecture’s past holds the key to sustainable future

Laser correction for short-sightedness is safe and effective for older teenagers

About one in five people taking Ozempic, Wegovy or Mounjaro say food tastes saltier or sweeter than before

Taking semaglutide turns down food noise, research suggests

Type 2 diabetes may double risk of sepsis, large community-based study suggests

New quantum sensors can withstand extreme pressure

Tirzepatide more cost-effective than semaglutide in patients with knee osteoarthritis and obesity

GLP-1 drugs shown cost-effective for knee osteoarthritis and obesity

Interactive apps, AI chatbots promote playfulness, reduce privacy concerns

How NIL boosts college football’s competitive balance

Moffitt researchers develop machine learning model to predict urgent care visits for lung cancer patients

Construction secrets of honeybees: Study reveals how bees build hives in tricky spots

Wheat disease losses total $2.9 billion across the United States and Canada between 2018 and 2021

New funding fuels development of first potentially regenerative treatment for multiple sclerosis

NJIT student–faculty team wins best presentation award for ant swarm simulation

Ants defend plants from herbivores but can hinder pollination

When the wireless data runs dry

Inquiry into the history of science shows an early “inherence” bias

Picky eaters endure: Ecologists use DNA to explore diet breadth of wild herbivores

Study suggests most Americans would be healthier without daylight saving time

[Press-News.org] New IVF device may improve fertility treatment
Open microwell setup for screening embryos may allows researchers to select the most viable ones before implantation, potentially increasing IVF success rates