Japan scientists devise "womb" for IVF eggs

By Tan Ee Lyn

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Scientists in Japan have created a "womb" for incubating artificially fertilized eggs in their earliest days, helping them grow nearly as fast as they would in the uterus, a researcher said on Friday.

Currently, test-tube human embryos are kept in "microdroplets" -- a mixture of mineral oil and culture fluid to keep them from drying out.

But that lags the superior conditions provided by the womb and artificially fertilized embryos tend to grow a lot slower in microdroplets compared to naturally conceived embryos.

This is not ideal because larger, faster-growing embryos are believed to stand a better chance of survival after being reinserted back into the mother's womb.

In the latest issue of New Scientist Magazine, researchers in Japan said they had devised a "chip" measuring 2 mm across and 0.5 mm high, which they said simulates more closely the conditions of a natural womb.

Fresh IVF embryos are slipped into the chips, which rest on a membrane of cultured uterus cells. Once they are ready to attach themselves to the uterus wall, the eggs are reinserted into the mother's womb.

"The idea is to give a more comfortable environment for the embryos...it works like a bed for embryos," said Teruo Fujii of the University of Tokyo's Institute of Industrial Science.

Fujii's team experimented with mouse embryos and found that those grown in chips grew quicker than those in microdroplets.