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

每六对加拿大夫妇中就有一对与不孕不育作斗争。在临床体外受精(IVF)中，约60%的胚胎移植后因染色体非整倍体导致妊娠丢失。为了筛选具有高着床潜力的整倍体胚胎，胚胎活检被广泛应用于体外受精中，从第5/6天的胚胎中采集少量滋养外胚层细胞(这些细胞将发育成胎盘)进行植入前遗传学测试(PGT)。目前的胚胎活检是一项复杂的手工操作，对细胞操作的技能要求很高。它需要很长的训练时间，但仍然对胚胎和收集的细胞造成很大的损害，这降低了胚胎的生殖潜力和PGT的准确性。这个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/连接分离目标细胞，而不会损害它们。这种自动活组织检查系统将消除人工活组织检查中操作员的主观性和不一致性，将对胚胎和采集细胞的损害降至最低，这将极大地提高胚胎的生殖潜力和PGT的准确性。这项自动化胚胎活检技术的商业化将使试管受精诊所的胚胎活检实践标准化，并帮助诊所满足全球迅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受精治疗失败的患者/家庭的沉重心理和经济负担。通过自动化、微创活组织检查选择的高质量胚胎将有助于改善后代的健康，从而提高生活质量，降低儿童一生中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.