Abstract

In vitro fertilization (IVF) has been an intensely growing field in biological research since 1978, when the first in vitro fertilization was successfully accomplished. Hitherto, there are about 115,000 babies born in the USA using this procedure. However, the chance of pregnancy with each IVF cycle is only 20-30 percent, and depends greatly on the patient history, on the laboratory techniques which endeavor to keep the oocyte under ideal conditions during the time of incubation, and most importantly the viability of the oocyte. Thus we have been employing Raman imaging to follow biochemical markers, such as mitochondrial aggregations, associated with the maturity of oocytes in vitro. The data were subsequently analyzed with unsupervised hierarchal cluster analysis (HCA). The results underscore earlier publications by C. Warner et al., opening up possibilities to view the lifetime of an oocyte without any invasive techniques, which in turn may provide an eventual methodology capable of measuring oocyte status, pinpointing optimal fertilization time.

Notes

Poster presented at the 2006 Thrust R2C Multi Spectral Discrimination Methods Conference

Keywords

Raman Imaging, Mitochondria, oocyte, HCA, in vitro fertilization

Subject Categories

Raman spectroscopy, Fertilization in vitro

Disciplines

Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering

Publisher

Bernard M. Gordon Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems (Gordon-CenSSIS)

Publication Date

2006

Rights Holder

Bernard M. Gordon Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems (Gordon-CenSSIS)


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