AI Could Scan IVF Embryos to Help Make Babies More Quickly

If a woman (or non-female identifying person with a uterus and visions of starting a family) is struggling to conceive and decides to improve their reproductive odds at an IVF clinic, they'll likely interact with a doctor, a nurse, and a receptionist. They will probably never meet the army of trained embryologists working behind closed lab doors to collect eggs, fertilize them, and develop the embryos bound for implantation. One of embryologists' more time-consuming jobs is doing something called "grading" embryos--looking at their morphological features under a microscope and assigning a quality score. Round, even numbers of cells are good. They'll use that information to decide which embryos to implant first. Newer methods, like pulling off a cell to extract its DNA and test for abnormalities, something called preimplantation genetic screening, provide more information.