Which Fertilized Eggs Will Become Healthy Human Fetuses? Researchers Predict With 93% Accuracy

Two-thirds of all human embryos fail to develop successfully. Now, in a new study, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have shown that they can predict with 93 percent certainty which fertilized eggs will make it to a critical developmental milestone and which will stall and die.

Because the parameters measured by the researchers in this study occur before any embryonic genes are expressed, the results indicate that embryos are likely predestined for survival or death before even the first cell division. Assessing these parameters in the clinic could make it easier for in vitro fertilization specialists to select embryos for transfer for a successful pregnancy.

The study will be published online Oct. 3 in Nature Biotechnology.

Original Paper:

Connie C Wong, Kevin E Loewke, Nancy L Bossert, Barry Behr, Christopher J De Jonge, Thomas M Baer & Renee A Reijo Pera. Non-invasive imaging of human embryos before embryonic genome activation predicts development to the blastocyst stage. Nature Biotechnology, October 3, 2010 DOI: 10.1038/nbt.1686

For more information:

http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2010/october/embryos.html