Embryo screening technology remains outdated, while continued research faces controversy

Individuals interested in vitro fertilization (IVF) often depend on pre-implantation genetic screening (PGS) to ensure an embryo is able to grow into a healthy child. But a study recently published in EMBO Reports found these screenings are often unreliable in distinguishing between unhealthy and healthy embryos.

A team of researchers from Brown University and the University of Washington concluded additional research is needed to improve the accuracy of PGS, which is crucial in the IVF process to help implant the most viable embryos. Those with infertility rely on the results given by PGS technology in differentiating between healthy embryos with 46 chromosomes, called euploids, and embryos with an uneven amount of chromosomes, called aneuploids.

Eli Adashi, MD, MS, professor of medical science and former dean of medicine and biological sciences at Brown, and Rajiv McCoy, PhD, a genome sciences postdoctoral fellow at Washington, agreed that the main route in improving PGS is advanced early embryonic research.

"Such insights may improve the diagnosis and selection of healthy embryos through PGS and hopefully will lead to the development of new technologies,” wrote Adashi and McCoy.

Currently, PGS tests genetic information from cells on the outer edge of the embryo but is unable to identify if an aneuploid is caused by meiotic or mitotic cell division. While researching embryonic cells remains a controversial topic in many countries, the study needed to improve PGS will be halted.

"This state of affairs hampers the acquisition of new insights into the intricate process of early human development," wrote Adashi and McCoy. “More importantly, translational breakthroughs intent on improving infertility care are being delayed. Patients afflicted with infertility deserve better."