Automation of the In Vitro Fertilization Laboratory

Not Applicable

Recruiting

• Conditions: Infertility; ART
• Interventions: Device: AURA assisted ART treatment

• Registration Number: NCT06581068
• Lead Sponsor: Conceivable Life Sciences

Brief Summary

Enrolled patients will undergo an Assisted Reproductive technology (ART) treatment using intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI, the direct injection of a single sperm cell into an oocyte) as the method of insemination. In this prospective cohort study, patients' sperm, eggs, and embryos will be processed using an automated system called AURA (Conceivable Life Sciences), which consists of five subsystems. Specifically, sperm samples will be prepared for fertilization using the subsystem C:SPERM. Cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs) containing the oocytes will be isolated from follicular fluid using the subsystem C:EGG. One out of every four COCs will be removed from the AURA system at random and processed according to the local treatment clinic's standard operating procedure. All other COCs will continue automated procedures and will be denuded, fertilized, incubated, and vitrified using the AURA subsystems C:EGG. C:ICSI, C:CULTURE and C:VIT, respectively. All automated procedures will be conducted under the supervision of a laboratory manager, who can intervene, address any potential anomalies, and override any steps undertaken by the automated AURA system. The study aims to deliver a descriptive evaluation of the AURA system, including assessing the device's performance, defined by its level of automation, efficiency, and throughput. As a secondary objective, the study aims to characterize the clinical performance of each of AURA's subsystems and correlate this performance against pre-established benchmarks in a non-inferiority statistical analysis. Finally, the study seeks to collect technical data related to AURA's hardware and software operation.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2024-08-29
• Study First Submitted QC: 2024-08-29
• Study First Posted: 2024-08-30
• Status Verified: 2024-12
• Study Start: 2024-12-03
• Last Update Submitted: 2024-12-18
• Last Update Posted: 2024-12-20
• Primary Completion: 2025-10
• Study Completion: 2025-10

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: RECRUITING
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 150

Inclusion Criteria

• Informed consent signed by the patients before treatment.

• Medical indication to perform assisted reproductive technology.

• Body mass index between 20 and 29 kg/m2 (female participants only).

• For women with indication of utilizing autologous eggs:

  • Anti-Müllerian Hormone (AMH) value of at least 1.5 ng/mL.
  • 18 - 39 years of age.

• For women utilizing donor eggs (egg donor age 18-28 years):

  • 18 - 45 years of age.

Exclusion Criteria

• Patients diagnosed with recurrent pregnancy loss.

• Inaccessible ovaries for puncture.

• History of total or partial fertilization failure in a previous fertility treatment.

• History of repeated implantation failure defined as three previous unsuccessful embryo transfers.

• Uterine factors (e.g. fibroids, uterine surgeries, Müllerian malformations) at the discretion of the medical team and based on its impact on success and/or risk to the patient or the pregnancy may compromise treatment prognosis).

• Untreated hydrosalpinx

• Severe endometriosis III, IV, presence of endometriomas and/or history of endometrioma resection.

• Polycystic ovarian syndrome.

• Patients with any of the following severe male factor infertility:

  • Sperm concentrations less than 5 million per mL
  • Progressive motility less than 5%
  • Others (e.g, globozoospermia and seminal infections) at the discretion of the medical team and based on its impact on success.
  • Surgically retrieved sperm (TESE, MESA, PESA)

• Pre-existing conditions compromising reproductive (e.g., thrombophilia, chronic degenerative and autoimmune diseases, uncontrolled hormonal disorders).

• Any other case of abnormalities that could compromise success rates according to the criteria of clinical personnel in charge.

• Inability to adhere to the medical protocols and/or schedules for personal reasons.

• Intercurrent medical disorder

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: SINGLE_GROUP

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
AURA assisted ART treatment	AURA assisted ART treatment	The laboratory element of the patient's ART treatment will be automated through the use of the AURA device. This includes sperm preparation and egg retrieval from follicular fluid. 1 out of every 4 eggs will be randomly removed from the AURA system and treated by standard care. The remaining eggs will be maintained in the AURA system and further processed automatically for egg denudation, fertilization, embryo culture, embryo cryopreservation.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Autonomy	9 months	proportion of tasks successfully completed by the AURA system without requiring human intervention.
Procedural timings	9 months	time employed by the AURA system to complete each of its automated tasks.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Normal fertilization rate	9 months	proportion of oocytes with two pronuclei (and two polar bodies if assessable) 16 hrs after ICSI.
Sperm motility post preparation	9 months	proportion of sperm cells displaying motility (progressive) following sperm preparation.
Denudation survival rate	9 months	proportion of oocytes that do not lyse or degenerate at the end of automated egg discovery and denudation.
ICSI damage rate	9 months	Proportion of oocytes that lyse or degenerate within 24 hours after ICSI.
Blastocyst development rate	9 months	proportion of embryos with expanded/expanding blastocoele and discernible inner cell mass (ICM) and trophectoderm (TE) observed on day 5 of development (where ICSI is performed on Day 0) as a function of normally fertilized oocytes.
Usable blastocyst development rate	9 months	proportion of blastocysts of sufficient quality for transfer or cryopreservation observed within 6 days of fertilization as a function of mature (MII) eggs injected with sperm during ICSI.
Blastocyst cryosurvival rate	9 months	proportion of cryopreserved blastocysts that present re-expansion within 2 hours of warming.
Implantation rate	9 months	number of gestational sacs detected by ultrasound scan performed at gestation weeks 5-8 per total number of embryos transferred.
Clinical pregnancy rate	9 months	number of patients with fetal heartbeats detected by ultrasound scan performed at gestation weeks 5-8 per total number of patients with an embryo transfer.

Trial Locations

Locations (2)

New Hope Fertility Centre, Mexico City; 🇲🇽 Mexico City, Mexico

Reina Madre; 🇲🇽 Mexico City, Mexico