Recent advancements in reproductive science have restored hope to women whose age has limited their fertility options. A team of researchers, including Melina Schuh, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences and co-founder of Ovo Labs, has discovered a method that could significantly improve in vitro fertilization (IVF) success rates for older women. This breakthrough could not come at a more critical time. In the UK, the average age of women seeking fertility treatments has now reached over 35.
As a woman ages, so do her chances of achieving a healthy conception with IVF. The main driver behind such a decline is the declining quality of eggs. We do know that the risk of chromosome disorders, such as Down’s syndrome, increases with maternal age. Women less than 35 years of age do have a commendable average birthrate of 35% per embryo transferred. In stark contrast to this experience, this rate plummets to only 5% for women 43–44 years.
Schuh and her colleagues have spent the past two decades researching egg biology and have identified a critical protein called Shugoshin 1. In their study, researchers found that the concentration of this protein declines with age. This increase has serious implications for the proper maintenance of chromosome pairs in eggs.
In their latest study, the scientists injected Shugoshin 1 into human eggs donated by fertility patients. This microinjection dramatically decreased aberrations in chromosome alignment. As a result the defect rate fell from 53% to just 29%. This improvement is a strong indication that this approach can enhance egg viability in older women. When we look just at eggs from women over 35, the defect rate is much lower. It falls from 65% in the control eggs to only 44% in the treated eggs.
“What is really beautiful is that we identified a single protein that, with age, goes down, returned it to young levels and it has a big effect,” – Prof Melina Schuh
The implications of these findings are significant. Dr. Agata Zielinska, co-founder and co-CEO of Ovo Labs, highlighted an area of concern. For patients experiencing female factor infertility, there is only one solution available to them—pursue several rounds of IVF in order to maximize their chances of success. What we imagine is that a far greater number of women would achieve conception in one IVF cycle.
While this study can’t necessarily reverse the impacts of aging on fertility, it does provide those antagonizing over infertility later in life some faint hope. “This is really important work because we need approaches that work for older eggs because that’s the point at which most women appear,” Schuh emphasized.
Those initial findings have continued to receive a warm reception from experts in the sustainable transportation field. University of Edinburgh’s Güneş Taylor was excited enough by the results to call them “really promising.” This would require a massive paradigm shift on how fertility treatments develop to best address the needs of older patients.
Ovo Labs is committed to making this revolutionary technique a commercial success. We want to give women of any age greater access to better IVF results. Increasingly, women are placing off having children for motives including profession objectives, schooling, and simple preference. First, this trend renders the need for effective reproductive technologies even more urgent.