The culmination of the academic year at Harvard University’s iLab is the awarding of the Bertarelli Prize to the winner of the Dean’s Health and Life Sciences Challenge. This year it was the turn of LuminOva to walk away with the prestigious award and a cheque for $40,000.
LuminOva was formed to address the problem of infertility which affects 15 per cent. of couple around the world and the relatively low success rates of current IVF treatment. LuminOva’s technology is non-invasive diagnostic techniques which is able to assess eggs and embryos in terms of the quality and viability. LuminOva’s technology measures fluorescence signals and from that derives the metabolic state of embryos. This means that clinicians will then be able to select only the very best embryos for implantation. The result of this is not only increased success rates, but also a reduction in the number of multiple pregnancies, an often unwanted
Alexandra Dickson explained the origins of LuminOva and why they are so committed to making progress with their technology:
“What makes us so passionate at LuminOva is that we see a field where there hasn’t been much innovation taking place, things haven’t changed that much in the industry and we really feel that a simple technology like ours can really make a huge impact.”
LuminOva intends to use their prize to engage with regulatory attorneys to help the company develop their road-map to market. They hope that very soon they will be able to move their technology from the laboratory and into the clinic so they can begin impacting the lives of patients.