New agreement to boost IVF research
Dr Sarah Boyd of SBI Australia, Professor Nadia Rosenthal, Director of ARMI and Professor Hiroaki Kitano, President of SBI.
The Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (ARMI), Japan's Systems Biology Institute (SBI) and Monash IVF have joined forces to improve the outlook for both infertile individuals and couples.
The MOU, signed this week, is the first major collaboration resulting from SBI Australia, a node of Japan’s Systems Biology Institute established last year at Monash University.
SBI President and Sir Louis Matheson Distinguished Visiting Professorial Fellow Professor Hiroaki Kitano was in Melbourne for the signing.
"The Systems Biology Institute is pleased to extend our relationship with ARMI andbe able to enter into this collaboration and Monash IVF, Australia's internationally recognised pioneer in IVF and reproductive technology," Professor Kitano said.
"We believe that the Institute's unique expertise in modelling and imaging along with Monash IVF's skills and experience in reproductive medicine will help develop projects leading to significant patients benefits."
Using methods from maths and engineering, and software developed developedat SBI, huge amounts of anonymous clinical data stored by Monash IVF over four decades of operation will be analysed.
This analysis will help researchers better understand the factors which affect the growth of embryos and discern which characteristics, including parents' lifestyles affect the success of IVF.
Another project will use non-harmful microscopic techniques developed at ARMI to track, in three dimensions, the development patterns of early embryos. These patterns can then be matched to IVF success.
Dr Sarah Boyd of ARMI and SBI Australia said that maths and engineering methods could be applied to biological research to better understand complex systems.
“With software and algorithms designed at the Systems Biology Institute, we hope to trace the development of a whole embryo, which will allow us to make better decisions about IVF. The end goal is reduced risk and better outcomes for families,”Dr Boyd said.
Combining the research strengths of ARMI and SBI with the clinical expertise of Monash IVF will not only provide researchers with a wealth of data, but will facilitate fast translation of research to the clinical setting.