MASSIVF
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Application of MASs Spectrometry and NMR based metabolomics analysis in female biofluids in patients undergoing IVF treatment at both extremes of response (low responders vs high responders) to identify predictive targets influencing outcomes of fertility treatments.
IRAS ID
248973
Contact name
Daphne Chong
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Liverpool
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 30 days
Research summary
In 2013, 64,600 IVF treatment cycles in the UK, resulted in over 20,000 pregnancies. However, despite advances in reproductive technologies, the success rate of IVF has remained static over the last 3 years, with overall live birth rates around 20-30% per treatment cycle.
Many factors influence IVF outcomes, from couple demographics, stimulation protocols to pre-existing conditions such as endometriosis. The artificial environment created in the laboratory to mimic human tubal and uterine environments also play a major factor in embryo development and the subsequent fate of the treatment.
With the exception of distinguishing the maturity of ooctyes, there is little ability to identify other parameters to predict the quality of oocytes and their subsequent ability to create embryos. Furthermore, in clinical practice today, embryos are selected as suitable for transfer into the women based on just morphological assessment and cleavage rates.
Improving the understanding of the microenvironment in which the oocytes are grown and where the embryos are cultured will hopefully lead to identification of potential biomarkers and development of possible diagnostic tools to predict oocyte quality and improve the overall fertility outcomes. The benefit of analyzing biospecimens such as follicular fluid, embryo culture medium, and blood (all either surplus byproducts of the procedure or easily accessible), is an opportunity to gain vast amount of knowledge and in future to utilize that knowledge to develop non-invasive tests.
New developments in Mass-spectrometry and NMR based metabolomics allows the study of the biospecimens we aim to collect (follicular fluid, embryo culture medium, and blood) at a molecular level with significantly improved accuracy. The move from targeted single metabolite to metabolomics profiling allows a more global analysis of the micro-environment studies examining the whole metabolome with a more catch-all purpose.
REC name
North West - Greater Manchester East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/NW/0618
Date of REC Opinion
11 Dec 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion