The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 10, 2002
Filed:
Jun. 09, 2000
Michael D. Cecchi, Madison, CT (US);
Jacques Cohen, Mountain Lakes, NJ (US);
Timothy Schimmel, Randolph, NJ (US);
GenX International Corp., Guilford, CT (US);
Abstract
An embryo culturing method and apparatus enables a plurality of embryos to be grown in communal clusters in a culturing container. The embryos are kept separate from each other in open interconnected compartments that are disposed in the culture container. Each compartment is contained in a structure having a plurality of interconnected compartments, and each compartment is sized to contain a single embryo. The culturing container will contain a plurality of the compartmentalized structures. The method and apparatus of this invention includes a culturing container, such as a Petrie dish, in which the embryos are grown. The Petrie dish preferably contains a plurality of the embryo-culturing compartmentalized structures which can be positioned in the Petrie dish in a predetermined pattern. For example, the compartmentalized structuress can be positioned in the Petrie dish at the 12 O'Clock, 2 O'Clock, 4 O'Clock, 8 O'Clock and 10 O'clock positions, or in any other planned deployment. The individual structures can be individually identified by letters, for example, such as A, B, C, D, etc. Each compartmentalized structure can contain a plurlaity, for example four, compartments which are interconnected for fluid exchange, but which are sized to restrain migration of an embryo from one compartment to another. The compartments in each structure can be identified by numerals, i.,e., 1, 2, 3 and 4. Thus each compartment in each structure would have a unique identifier code, such as A1, B2, C3, and the like; or 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, or the like. Any identifier system can be used which will enable the individual embryos to be distinguished one from another. After the embryos are placed in the compartments in each structure, each of the structures is covered with a drop of an embryo-enhancing growth nutrient so that each of the embryos in any one structure is exposed to a common growth nutrient, and each embryo in each compartmentalized structure can share growth by-products with each of the other embryos in the same compartmentalized structure.