Vibrating Human Eggs For IVF

Vidcast: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOwf2u9FNvx/

When a woman’s eggs are harvested from her ovaries in preparation for in-vitro fertilization (IVF) or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), they are covered by so-called cumulus cells. These cells must be removed after IVF and before ICSI in order to obtain viable fertilized eggs for implantation. The traditional method for cumulus removal, CR, involves vortexing using manual pipetting. This process often damages some of the eggs, the oocytes.

Enter biologists at Cornell University with a microfluidic chip through which eggs can pass and be cleansed of cumulus cells with vibration-induced flow. The chip has a spiral array of micro-pillars that separate the smaller cumulus cells from the larger oocytes and flush them out of the chip.

Pre-clinical studies using a mouse model showed the process to be fast, efficient, and gentle for the eggs. As many as 23 oocytes were simultaneously cleaned successfully with the potential for fertilization and embryo initiation similar to those for manual pipette cleaning. Hopefully, after this method undergoes additional testing, it will be ready for the clinic……someday soon.

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2025/lc/d5lc00414d

#oocytes #cumulus #ivf #icsi #microchip #cleansing