Development of an automated system for blastocyst biopsy with minimal invasiveness in IVF clinics

六分之一的加拿大夫妇患有不孕症。在临床体外受精（IVF）中，约60%的胚胎因染色体非整倍体而导致妊娠丢失。为了选择具有高着床潜力的整倍体胚胎，胚胎活检在IVF中被广泛使用，从第5/6天的胚胎中收集少量滋养外胚层细胞（将发育成胎盘）进行着床前基因检测（PGT）。目前胚胎活组织检查是一项复杂的人工操作，对细胞操作技术要求很高。它需要较长的训练时间，但对胚胎和收集的细胞仍有较大的损伤，这降低了胚胎的生殖潜力和PGT的准确性。该I2I项目旨在开发一种损伤最小的自动胚胎活检系统。该系统能够以最小的细胞变形自动操作胚胎，确定收集的细胞数量，并沿着细胞连接/连接分离靶细胞而不损害它们。这种自动活检系统将消除人工活检时操作人员的主观性和不一致性，最大限度地减少对胚胎和收集细胞的损伤，从而大大提高胚胎的生殖潜力和PGT的准确性。这种自动胚胎活检技术的商业化将使体外受精诊所的胚胎活检实践标准化，并帮助诊所满足全球快速增长的胚胎活检需求。此外，这项技术将有助于减轻反复经历试管婴儿治疗失败的患者/家庭沉重的心理和经济负担。通过自动化、微创活检选择的高质量胚胎将有助于改善后代的健康，从而提高孩子一生的生活质量，降低医疗保健系统的成本。

One in six Canadian couples struggles with infertility. In clinical in vitro fertilization (IVF), ~60% embryos that proceed to transfer end in pregnancy loss caused by chromosomal aneuploidy. To select euploid embryos with high implantation potential, embryo biopsy is widely used in IVF to collect a few trophectoderm cells (which will develop into the placenta) from Day 5/6 embryos for preimplantation genetic testing (PGT). Present embryo biopsy is a complicated manual operation and demands high skills for cell manipulation. It requires long training time, but still suffers from large damage to the embryo and collected cells, which reduces the embryo's reproductive potential and PGT accuracy. This I2I project aims to develop a system for automated embryo biopsy with minimal damage. The system is able to automatically manipulate embryos with minimal cell deformation, determine collected cell number, and separate target cells along cell connections/junctions without impairing them. This automated biopsy system will eliminate operator subjectivity and inconsistency in manual biopsy, minimize damage to both embryos and collected cells, which will greatly improve the embryo's reproductive potential and PGT accuracy. The commercialization of this automated embryo biopsy technology will standardize the practice of embryo biopsy in IVF clinics and help clinics meet the rapidly increasing demand for embryo biopsy worldwide. In addition, this technology will help reduce the heavy psychological and financial burden on patients/families who experience repeated IVF treatment failures. The high-quality embryos selected through automated, minimally invasive biopsy will help improve the health of offspring, resulting in higher quality of life and lower cost to the healthcare system over the child's life.