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Endometrial and embryonic genomics, searching for biomarkers in assisted reproduction (short title: Search for Assisted Reproduction Markers)
| acronym: |
SARM |
| start: |
2013-01-01 |
| end: |
2016-12-31 |
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| programme: |
FP7 - Euroopa Liidu 7. raamprogramm |
| sub-programme: |
PEOPLE - Marie Curie tegevused |
| instrument: |
MC-IAPP |
| call identifier: |
FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IAPP |
| project number: |
324509 |
| duration in months: |
48 |
| partner count: |
5 |
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| abstract: |
Infertility is a serious medical concern preventing the parenthood in 10% of couples. Infertility treatment using assisted reproduction techniques (ART) is popular in Europe with up to 5% of children born thanks to medical help. Despite many technological improvements the overall pregnancy rate after infertility treatment using the most commonly practiced in vitro fertilization (IVF) remains only 30% per single cycle. The specific features of human reproduction include the high prevalence of diverse chromosomal pathologies in oocytes and early embryos, and significant dysregulation in gene expression in embryo and endometrial tissue, both being the risk factors for implantation failure and decreased pregnancy rate after IVF. Hence, the intrinsic motivation for the current SARM project stems from the perceived need to contribute to future IVF improvements and benefit from the recent breakthroughs in technological innovations. Our primary research objective is to unravel the molecular nature of human preimplantation embryo development and endometrial maturation. This ambitious goal will be achieved by exploiting highly sophisticated single-cell genomics tools, such as fine-resolution mapping of DNA copy-number changes by using SNP-arrays and sequencing platforms, and characterizing single-cell transcriptional landscape by RNA-sequencing. These studies are likely to propose novel embryonal and endometrial biomarkers useful for selecting the most competent embryos for transfer or identifying the causes of female infertility of endometrial origin. The SARM consortium consists of 2 industrial (IVIOMICS, Paterna/Spain and Competence Centre on Reproductive Medicine, Tartu/Estonia) and 3 academic (Karolinska Institute, Stockholm/Sweden; Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium and University of Tartu/Estonia) partners, forming a strong, stimulating and coherent research environment ensuring the pooling of complementary scientific skills in reproductive genetics and medicine. |
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