NEWS & KNOWLEDGE

In the process of IVF or ICSI, an important step that will help increase the success rate of pregnancy for those with infertility problems is having a “good quality embryo”. A good quality embryo must be raised in an environment that is suitable for the embryo in order for the embryo to be in the most perfect condition.

Time-lapse is a special embryo incubator that uses technology to cultivate embryos in the incubator along with taking pictures using a microscope that can track the development of the embryo at all times. With this technology, scientists can continuously monitor the growth of embryos. With this time-lapse technology, it reduces the disturbance to the embryo's growth caused by opening and closing the incubator to observe the growth of the embryos, and reduces stress from changes in temperature and air, allowing the embryos to grow better in the right conditions. 

The Time-lapse embryo incubator that N.I.C uses is a self-gas-mixing embryo incubator. Do not use gas mixed from the company. This allows for accurate gas percentages and can be adjusted to obtain the most suitable pH for embryo culture. It is also a group culture system using the same embryo culture solution but separate drops of solution. This allows the embryos to promote each other for better growth. Up to 25 embryos can be cultured per dish.

Features of Time-lapse Incubator

1. Time-lapse Incubator can maintain the internal environment such as temperature, humidity, acidity-alkalinity of embryo culture solution at a constant level, allowing the embryos to grow without any disturbance from the environment.
2. Embryos grown in Time-lapse Incubator are equipped with “time-lapse” technology that allows the embryos to be monitored at all times. Scientists can examine the developmental characteristics of the embryos, such as abnormal fertilization, abnormal cell division (direct cleavage/reverse cleavage), which cannot be detected when growing embryos in a conventional incubator.
3. Time-lapse Incubator has technology to help select embryos with the highest probability of implantation by grading them based on the assessment of embryo development stages relative to time (embryo morpho kinetics grading). This method of embryo selection is based on the ability of the embryo to grow, which is different from the selection based on the morphology of the traditional embryo incubator. Currently, AI (artificial intelligence) and deep learning algorithms are being used to help select embryos.

By:

 Assoc.Prof. Matchuporn Sukprasert

Piyarat Sopaboon, Clinical Embryologist