Innovation and research

Our team of clinicians and embryologists regularly attend lectures, workshops, and conferences around the world to represent ARGC and share their experience with other professionals in the field of assisted reproduction.

The ARGC was awarded a research licence (Project Reference R0165) to investigate immunological factors of implantation and embryo development. The findings supported our clinic practice and were published in peer review journals.

ARGC’s Publications:

• Cell bio-imaging reveals co-expression of HLA-G and HLA-E in human preimplantation embryos

• Interaction between HLA-G and monocyte/macrophages in human pregnancy.

• Quantified Colocalization Reveals Heterotypic Histocompatibility Class I Antigen Associations on Trophoblast Cell Membranes: Relevance for Human Pregnancy 

• Galectin-I influences trophoblast immune evasion and emerges as a predictive factor for the outcome of pregnancy

• Analysis of HLA-G in maternal plasma, follicular fluid, and preimplantation embryos reveal an asymmetric pattern of expression.

• Die-off ratio correlates with increased TNF-α:IL-10 ratio and decreased IVF success rates correctable with humira.

• Immunotherapy for IVF implantation failure: “just in case” or “just in time”?  Mohamed Taranissi and Tarek El-Toukhy in How to improve your ART success rates. Gab Kovacs. Cambridge University Press. UK.

• Elevated preconception CD56+ 16+ and/or Th1:Th2 levels predict benefit from IVIG therapy in subfertile women undergoing IVF.

• Birth defect rates in women using Adalimumab (Humira(®) ) to treat immunologic-based infertility in IVF patients.

• Degree of TNF-α/IL-10 cytokine elevation correlates with IVF success rates in women undergoing treatment with Adalimumab (Humira) and IVIG.

• Treatment with adalimumab (Humira) and intravenous immunoglobulin improves pregnancy rates in women undergoing IVF.

• Health of children conceived after preimplantation genetic diagnosis: a preliminary outcome study.

• Which is more counterproductive: a brief delay or ‘start anyway’?

• Towards better quality research in recurrent implantation failure: standardizing its definition is the first step.

• Preimplantation testing for chromosomal disorders improves reproductive outcome of poor-prognosis patients.

• Influence of maternal age on the outcome of PGD for aneuploidy screening in patients with recurrent implantation failure.

• Preimplantation HLA testing.

• Defining and predicting the poor responder!

• Techniques of embryo transfer.

• Percutaneous epididymal sperm aspiration and intracytoplasmic sperm injection in the management of infertility due to obstructive azoospermia.

• Late intracytoplasmic sperm injection in unexpected failed fertilization in vitro: diagnostic or therapeutic?

• Intramural pregnancy following difficult embryo transfer.

•  Laparoscopic peritoneal closure needle for prevention of port hernia and management of abdominal wall vessel injury

Some ARGC’s patients, who have completed their families, consent for their frozen embryos (which are no longer required for their treatment) to be available for research. To assist these patients we have set up a collaboration with the Francis Crick Institute in London, which is the first centre to have received permission from the HFEA to use the genome-editing technique, ‘CRISPR-Cas9’, in human embryos. This technique will allow a better understanding of the earliest stages of human development.