Controlled loading of cryoprotectants (CPAS) with cell volume constraints

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Oocyte cryopreservation techniques are considered very important aspects in biomedical research for oocyte and embryo cryopreservation to be used in future in In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) procedure. Oocyte cryopreservation is an important aspect in many applications that involves deffering the time of pregnancy to future due to many reasons such as chemo therapy for the ones who have cancer or failed IVF cycles that reduce the cost for future cycles. The definition of optimal cryopreservation protocols highly depends on knowing the permeability of the cell membrane to water and cryoprotective agents. Due to the large size of oocytes that requires microscopy methods which could be difficult to implement, micro fluidic device is presented in this study based on Coulter-principle to simultaneously control and measure the volume of a single cell. In this thesis we designed and fabricated a micro fluidic device to monitor the cell volume change to allow the implementation of state-space optimized CPA equilibration strategies without prior knowledge of cell membrane transport parameters.