Developmental Physiology Laboratory - Honours in 2010

An Honours project undertaken in this lab would be administered by the Discipline of Physiology.

The number of babies born in Australia as a result of assisted reproduction technologies (ART) increases each year. However, the percentage of treatment cycles that result in a live birth is only 17%. In attempts to improve outcomes of ART, embryos are being cultured for longer periods with the assumption that embryos that develop to a later stage must be of 'higher quality'. But it is clear from mammalian models of human development that the culture environment causes significant alterations in gene expression, epigenetics, metabolism and cell proliferation. In order to improve reproductive outcomes from ART it is critical to understand the impact of the culture environment on aspects of pre-implantation embryonic development.

Impact of growth factors on early embryo development in vitro

Supervisor + contact details:

• Dr Margot Day

Maternally-derived factors are absent during embryo culture and embryo-derived factors are often inactive because of sub-optimal culture conditions. This project will investigate which factors improve embryo development following IVF and culture. It will also investigate the intracellular signalling pathways utilised by these factors.

Research in the laboratory utilizes a number of techniques including mouse embryo culture, fluorescent measurement of intracellular ions, patch-clamping and molecular biology.