General information
Organisation
The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) is a key player in research, development and innovation in four main areas :
• defence and security,
• nuclear energy (fission and fusion),
• technological research for industry,
• fundamental research in the physical sciences and life sciences.
Drawing on its widely acknowledged expertise, and thanks to its 16000 technicians, engineers, researchers and staff, the CEA actively participates in collaborative projects with a large number of academic and industrial partners.
The CEA is established in ten centers spread throughout France
Reference
SL-DRT-24-0514
Direction
DRT
Thesis topic details
Category
Technological challenges
Thesis topics
In vitro fertilization technology: microfluidic platform for non-invasive embryo reception and characterization
Contract
Thèse
Job description
Infertility affects 17.5% of couples of childbearing age. Assisted reproductive technologies (ART), such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), are costly and complex procedures requiring advanced equipments and a highly skilled workforce. Successive embryo manipulations are a source of stress that can impact on embryo quality and viability. But developmental abnormalities and miscarriages are mainly caused by chromosomal number anomalies or aneuploidies. These can be detected by pre-implantation diagnosis of aneuploidies (PGD-A) followed by high-throughput sequencing (NGS). However, PGD-A remains complex and invasive, with embryo biopsy potentially having implications for embryo development.
The question the PhD student will have to answer is: can we design a technological alternative that enables both automated culture of in vitro fertilization (IVF) embryos and their selection by non-invasive methods? The project will focus on automating embryo handling, while minimizing mechanical stress, and on extracting the extra-embryonic medium for circulating DNA analysis.
Expected results include an automated microfluidic platform for handling embryos without human intervention, extraction of extra-embryonic medium for aneuploidy analysis by sequencing, and building the program basis for microfluidic technologies applied to IVF.
University / doctoral school
Ingénierie pour la Santé, la Cognition et l’Environnement (EDISCE)
Université Grenoble Alpes
Thesis topic location
Site
Grenoble
Requester
Position start date
01/10/2024
Person to be contacted by the applicant
LAPORTE Camille camille.laporte@cea.fr
CEA
DRT/DTBS/SEMIV/LSMB
17 avenue des Martyrs
38000 Grenoble
0438786115
Tutor / Responsible thesis director
COUTTON Charles CCoutton@chu-grenoble.fr
CHUGA
Equipe 'Génétique, Epigénétique et Thérapies de l'Infertilité' IAB, INSERM 1209, CNRS UMR 5309
Laboratoire de Génétique Chromosomique
Service de Génétique et Procréation
Centre de Diagnostic Pré-implantatoire (DPI)
Hôpital Couple-Enfant
CHU Grenoble Alpes –CS 10217
38 043 Grenoble cedex 09
0476765482
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