A couple of years ago researchers at the Prague Fertility Center used AI as part of the IVF process.  They believed that their work was the first automated technology to use AI to recognize and sort embryos.

Now, a team from Imperial College London and the University of Hong Kong have developed sensor technology that they believe can measure hormones in real time and provide a reliable assessment of fertility.

They’ve documented their work in a recently published paper, in which they describe how their technology can help to better identify the reproductive health problems that are believed to affect 1 in 3 women in the UK.

Reproductive health

Reproductive health issues are typically diagnosed via blood tests that aim to measure the level of luteinizing hormone (LH) in the sample.  The problem is that blood tests are often inadequate at measuring the rise and fall of LH levels that is key for fertility.  Indeed, to do so would require samples to be taken every 10 minutes for 8 hours!

The researchers believe they’ve come up with a solution, with a robotic system, called Robotic APTamer-enabled Electrochemical Reader (RAPTER), which they believe can monitor hormone patterns in real-time.

“Reproductive health issues are common amongst women in the UK and around the world. Diagnosis of some of these conditions can be lengthy resulting in delays to treatment. Reproductive health issues can also impact on women’s mental and physical wellbeing. There is a clear need for new and better ways to diagnose these conditions more quickly. Our technology will be able to give clinicians a faster and more accurate diagnosis of hormone pulsatility that affects reproductive health, which could lead to better and more targeted treatments for women,” the authors say.

Getting to market

Suffice to say, there is still some way to go before the technology is ready for market, and the team plan on refining the technology further to make the sensor smaller and more analogous in size to a glucose monitoring device.

“We have developed technology that is able to measure LH pulsatility in patients more quickly and cheaply than current methods. We will now work towards making the technology more accessible for the clinic by reducing the size of the device, which could revolutionise the clinical care of patients with reproductive or other disorders,” they explain.