2023-10-05 20:45:22
According to the World Health Organization, one in six couples faces infertility in their lifetime and needs medical treatment to conceive. However, only one in three assisted reproduction treatments results in a birth.
To improve these results, reproductive medicine historically focused attention on the egg, but innovative research has shown that semen activity contributes beyond fertilization and is key to good embryo development and the success of the offspring. treatments.
The new technology was developed by researchers from the Institute of Biology and Experimental Medicine (IBYME) of CONICET and the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology of Rosario (IBR) of CONICET and UNR, in Argentina.
Called HyperSperm, this technique reproduces in sperm the same biochemical changes that are generated naturally in the female reproductive tract during spontaneous fertilization. These changes allow the sperm to acquire a movement capacity called hyperactivation, which is important for successful fertilization and which, however, does not reproduce correctly with current assisted reproduction techniques.
For years the sperm was considered a mere means of transport for the genetic contribution of the father to the embryo. “Today we know that the functions of the sperm go far beyond just providing paternal genetic material to the oocyte,” says researcher Darío Krapf and expands: “The molecular processes that develop after ejaculation have a crucial effect on the correct development of the sperm.” embryo”.
Due to this, this method recreates in the laboratory the natural modifications that a sperm undergoes within the female tract, “enabling high efficiency of the assisted reproductive procedure.”
According to the expert, infertility is one of the prevalent diseases worldwide and is growing year by year due to different factors: the environmental impact that in some way affects fertile capacity and the delay in the age at which one seeks to conceive, which means that the reproductive machinery is damaged.
It is estimated that on average, worldwide, a couple needs three cycles to achieve pregnancy. “Women put a lot of effort into their bodies, there is great physical and emotional exhaustion and unfortunately many couples fall by the wayside,” says the IBR researcher and adds: “The fact that reproductive assistance is presented as an iteration of cycles that “They are not very efficient, it means that the couple has to repeatedly face failures and that is very painful.”
This new method, by increasing the number and quality of embryos, proposes halving the cycles necessary to achieve a pregnancy and thus also reducing the physical, emotional and economic cost.
Researchers have developed a new method that focuses on the sperm with the aim of increasing the effectiveness of fertility treatments. (Photo: IBR)
Pioneering clinical study
To test the feasibility of the technique in an infertility treatment context, a pilot trial was carried out. Ten infertile couples were selected with a long history of unsuccessful in vitro fertilization treatments, and who were resorting to a new treatment with donor eggs. To analyze the results of the study, the eggs of each couple were divided into two groups: half were fertilized using the usual technique while the other half were fertilized after treating the semen with HyperSperm.
In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment, the usual success parameters of in vitro fertilization were observed, especially the fertilization and development of embryos in the laboratory. Sperm treated with the new method generated 63% more high-quality embryos.
In addition, some patients received embryo transfers derived from the HyperSperm treatment and resulted in pregnancies: the first of them has already given birth to a baby at the In Vitro Buenos Aires Clinic, which collaborates in the research together with CONICET and the University National of Rosario. Two other pregnancies achieved with the same technique are currently in the third trimester.
“The first birth was very encouraging,” the doctor in Biological Sciences told Argentina Investiga and highlighted that it was completely normal. Something to be expected because the arrival at that stage was supported by preclinical tests with animal models where the offspring had also been completely normal, which allowed the ethics committees to enable the test in the human reproductive clinic.
Once the study is concluded, the data obtained are encouraging and suggest that the time necessary to obtain a pregnancy through assisted reproduction treatments could be cut in half by up to half, making their execution cheaper and allowing more patients access to the treatments. The full results will be presented in New Orleans at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine Congress.
However, the researchers clarify that this is a pilot study and, as such, limited in size and scope. Currently, testing is being expanded both in Rosario and in two more centers in the province of Buenos Aires. “On the one hand, to know in which couples, according to certain biochemical conditions, this procedure is best suited and, on the other, to satisfy the requirements of the regulatory bodies ANMAT in Argentina, FDA in the United States and EMA in Europe,” explains Krapf.
It should be noted that this is a technology whose patent is pending and is property of the UNR and CONICET. These institutions license researchers so that they can develop it through the technology-based startup Fecundis and make it available in reproductive clinics in approximately three years.
Fecundis is a clinical-stage medical technology company focused on the development of this disruptive technology to increase the success rate of assisted human reproduction. “Its mission is to revolutionize reproductive medicine by focusing on the sperm, with the aim of increasing the effectiveness and reducing the economic and psychological impact of fertility treatments.”
The Argentine company, based in the Barcelona Science Park, was founded by the international expert in reproductive medicine Rita Vassena, previously global scientific director of the Eugin Group, and the scientists Mariano Buffone and Darío Krapf, recognized leaders in biology research. spermatic, with more than fifty years of accumulated experience in human fertility. (Source: Argentina Investiga)
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