Stretching the limits of knowledge attainable with live cell imaging in ARTs

Excerpt

The history of embryology owes much to the observational skills of pioneering scientists armed with little more than an insatiable curiosity and a good microscope. And true to form, our current ART principles upon which we rely in judging the developmental competencies of embryos produced for treating patients desirous of term pregnancies remain vested in what the embryologist is beholden to under the microscope. Methods like polarization microscopy were first developed as a non-invasive tool, delivering properties of molecular order within oocytes and embryos as signposts of viability and developmental potential, coordinated in time with the introduction of ICSI and assuring a generation of egg-prickers that the meiotic spindle would become an innocent and unharmed bystander after their intrusive acts. …