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Australian IVF breakthrough

In a world first, an Australian company has developed a new technology to make IVF more successful.

The company has created an incubation machine with timelapse photography, which allows scientists and potential parents to watch their embryos grow in their first crucial few days, improving on Australia's already high success rates.

"This is really a combination of a number of clever ideas put together to be a really clever idea,” Genea Medical Director Mark Bowman said.


Normally scientists have to remove embryos from an incubator to inspect their progress under a microscope.

Now, in-built microscopes mean the embryos can stay inside at a constant temperature.

"Less disturbance of embryos means a higher pregnancy rate,” Dr Bowman said.

An Australian company as created an incubation machine with timelapse photography that allows scientists and potential parents to watch their embryos grow in their first crucial few days. Photo: 7News
An Australian company as created an incubation machine with timelapse photography that allows scientists and potential parents to watch their embryos grow in their first crucial few days. Photo: 7News

It also means scientists can determine which embryos are developing the best.

"We can watch that rate of development of cells, the evenness of division of cells, a whole lot of other features that give us a much better indicator of that particular embryo's chance of leading to a pregnancy,” Dr Bowman said.

Ultimately the aim of this technology is to make the timelapse vision available online, which means prospective parents will be able to log in from home and watch their embryos grow, on their phone.