Since the start of IVF, a major contributor ot success was the quality of the media used in the lab to nurture the embryos. I believe that in the early days the predecessors of Reproductive Partners were two of the most successful groups because of Dr. David Meldrum’s scientific prowess and attention to detail in creating culture media and the fine training he gave to our first embryologist, Minda Hamilton.
Today most centers use commercial media. It’s good, but it’s not perfect. Data have shown that infants conceived via IVF are at a slightly higher risk for some birth defects and genetic disorders (which may be due to characteristics in the parents requiring them to have IVF to conceive), and are more likely to be born at low birth weight. One possible cause for these differences is epigenetics — that is, the markers that turn genes on and off. Scientists have noticed that IVF embryos have subtly different epigenetic patterns than naturally conceived embryos.
And one of the prime differences between the process of IVF and natural conception is the early embryonic environment. So, researchers trying to improve IVF have begun looking at how to make the Petri dish environment more like that of the fallopian tubes.
According to an article in Stat News, Pilar Coy and her colleagues at the University of Murcia in Spain are some of those researchers. Their hypothesis: That fluids in the female reproductive tract have an effect on the early embryo. Studies in animals have supported that idea, and now the team is launching a pilot study in humans in which women’s eggs will be cultured in a dish containing fluid from her own reproductive tract — and Coy will watch and see if those fluids make for a healthier embryo.
One way to get culture media to more closely resemble human tubal fluid, of course, is to add actual human tubal fluid. For Coy’s experiment, planned to begin in September, she and a team at local IVF clinics will culture half of the eggs a woman has had collected in a medium supplemented with fluid from the mother’s reproductive tract — also known as oviductal fluid — after it’s tested to ensure there isn’t anything that might harm the embryo. The other half will be cultured by a conventional IVF procedure, and researchers will watch to see if or how they grow differently than the other group.
Coy and her colleagues are hopeful that they could someday launch a bank of fluid from human donors, which could then be given to women undergoing IVF, akin to an off-the-shelf blood transplant. They’ve already banked the first of those human samples — though regulatory approval for a study using donor fluid is at least two to three years away, Coy estimated.
This may, in the future, be a way to improve the success of IVF in creating healthy babies.