Andrea Borini
Andrea Borini - Tecnobios Procreazione, Bologna
Andrea Borini MD is Clinical and Scientific Director at Tecnobios Procreazione, Centre for Reproductive Health. Bologna, Italy.
After completing his MD degree at the University of Bologna in 1986, Dr Borini obtained his specialization degree in Obstetrics and Gynaecology from the same institution in 1991. During this time, he was also a Research Fellow at the University of California Irvine, Irvine, California (1989–1991) and in 2007 he attained a Master’s degree in Andrology at the University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
Andrea Borini MD is Chairman of Italian Society of Fertility, Sterility and Reproductive Medicine (SIFES e MR).
He has been a past-Chairman of the CECOS – Italy (2002 – 2008) and PROFERT - Italian Society for Fertility Preservation (2008-2013). Andrea Borini MD is member of the editorial board of Fertility and Sterility and associate editor for Reproductive BioMedicine Online and JARG.
Project: IR Microspectroscopy on GCs: a new non-invasive oocyte assesment
Usually, in the ART clinical routine, the oocyte selection is based on the morphological parameters of the cytoplasm, polar body and cumulus cells. However, all the morphological criteria for grading and screening of oocytes are subjective and controversial, and seem not to be related to the intrinsic competence of the oocyte. Helpful information could be deduced from the study of Granulosa Cells (GC). The oocyte plays a dominant role in regulating GCs functions and in maintaining the appropriate microenvironment for the development of its own competence. Hence, GC functions reflect oocyte competence, and the definition of specific molecular markers related to these cells could be potentially used to predict oocyte quality.
The aim of the present project is the use of InfraRed MicroSpectroscopy (IRMS) technique to monitor GCs quickly and to obtain objective and biological relevant information on these cells, in order to set-up a new, non-invasive, fast and reliable tool for the indirect assessment of good quality oocyte in ART practice.
The development of a standardized IRMS method to predict oocyte quality by GCs analysis will allow the ART operator to select the MII oocytes to fertilize with the highest quality and the greater potential to give a pregnancy, enabling the reduction of inseminated oocytes and thus the number of embryos produced.
The main goals of the project are:
- Manufacturing of IRMS microfluidic device for the analysis of living GCs in order to evaluate in real time molecular and biochemical information both under physiological conditions and upon drug, chemical, and/or stressing stimulations.
- Identification of good quality spectral biomarkers in GCs based on fertilization rate, cleavage rate and embryo grading. Selected biomarkers will be validated using conventional biomolecular tools (RNA-seq, miRNA, Q-PCR…).
- Validation of the developed tool by a randomized study.
- Development of a dedicate software in order to correlate GCs spectral biomarkers to oocyte quality and to standardize this new evaluation method in the ART laboratories.
