Dry incubator… It is better than wet ones!
We met Biologist Fernanda Hernández, very happy with a new toy and as #KnowledgeIsSuccess she explained to us how this new incubator works… Without a doubt, the best quality is achieved with attention to the smallest detail, which is why being a mother is possible at Creafam.
What is the flat and dry incubator for?
Hello, good morning, I am the biologist Fernanda Hernández, I am also responsible for embryology at Creafam’s assisted reproduction IVF laboratory. It is a pleasure for us to be able to share our new acquisition, which is a flat incubator and you may wonder what this incubator is for. And now we are going to explain a little more about this.
What do we do inside these incubators? Once we obtain our eggs and carry out fertilization, we then have to carry our already fertilized eggs, which are called zygotes, in plates as you have already seen in previous videos, plates called petri dishes where we are going to put micro drops. with a special culture to be able to maintain our embryos, that way we are going to place them in one of these chambers, if you can see we have the round shape where our plates, our wells, where they are going to fit perfectly.
In these chambers we place what are our boxes, which are petri dishes, which are culture plates where the idea is that this chamber is for an individual patient because we need two plates to evaluate fertilization and for embryonic culture, since Let us remember that two types of culture are used to achieve better development, that is why we avoid cross contamination, that is, each chamber is for one patient, we cannot put two plates from different patients in order to avoid some type of contamination and this to have better embryonic quality.
Likewise, we can calibrate in this part precisely the strict conditions that we require such as the temperature at 37°, the concentration of pure CO2, as well as a minimum concentration of nitrogen and oxygen, that is, hypoxic conditions. How do we control it? Through this plate where we can calibrate what we need to have better conditions. Let us remember that our body temperature is 37 degrees, therefore, the embryos must be at that temperature, which is why this technology of this new incubator will allow us to have this heated plate that will go flat to each chamber. This incubator has space for up to 10 patients. If you notice, each chamber is numbered and we have a special screen to be able to put the patient’s name on them and thus prevent us from making any mistakes. Once we place the culture and the embryos on this plate, we are going to leave them in a necessary microenvironment so that they can develop in the best way and disturb them as little as possible.
Zero disturbance
How are we going to realize this non-disturbance? In a very simple way because this incubator allows us to do it, we are only going to open the chamber that we need to open, unlike traditional incubators where we have to open the door completely and there is a degree of disturbance.
Imagine a refrigerator, when you want to take something out of the refrigerator you have to open the door completely, it is the same thing that happens with our incubators before the current ones we have today, I have to open the door completely to be able to see the plate of the embryos of a patient and disturb those of the other patients, the difference and the great advantage with this incubator is that this microenvironment is not disturbed, I will only be able to open the chamber of each patient that I am going to transfer or that I am going to occupy at that time your embryos or to evaluate because we have a strict evaluation control so that you can have your baby at home.
In addition, it has a dry field chamber where we can balance the media a day before (the culture media) or prepare the necessary media for the best cultivation of the embryos. Since we must remember that in order to have good embryos we must have very controlled and strictly evaluated conditions.
In order to evaluate our embryos we have very strict evaluation protocols, this so that we can observe the development of our embryos day by day since according to these morphological and metabolic protocols we can realize when the development is going abnormal or in an abnormal way and thus be able to have close communication with the doctor and thus be able to inform you day by day about the development of your embryos, since for us it is a priority that you have all the information about what is being done. That is why we observe them after fertilization, that is, once we realize and evaluate that the sperm actually fertilizes the egg, then we are going to evaluate them day by day. As we have seen in other videos, on day 2 we can evaluate the 4 blastomeres on day 3, 8 blastomeres in 4 days the morula stage, as well as on day 5 a blastocyst ready to transfer, we evaluate this day by day and pass a strict enough reporting so that you can know that information that is so vital.
The intention of being able to show them to you is because it is a new acquisition so that you realize that at Creafam we are always at the forefront of all the processes that are necessary and offer you the best service as our priority is to give you quality service as our patients, that is why if you notice right now it is fresh out of the package, we are checking that everything works, in addition to the fact that it has special connections and special maintenance is given. Once we carry out these processes we are going to take it to the laboratory ready to be used, as you will see at this moment it is only to show you and for you to realize everything we do day by day so that you can have that dream that so much you want and the quality of the work we offer you.