Extracorporal Ovary Bioreactor System with Oxygen Supply and Drug Delivery Option

Young women who have survived cancer may have lost their fertility due to cytotoxic treatments like chemotherapy or irradiation. So far, oocyte or ovarian tissue cryopreservation are well-known and well-used opportunities for fertility preservation prior cytotoxic therapies. However, these methods are not possible in certain cases, like those with a high risk of ovarian metastasis or prepubertal girls. Therefore, new medical and biotechnological options are also being sought to help this patient group to fulfill their desire to have their own biological children. The investigation described here focuses on the possibility of in vitro follicle maturing. To this point, a long-term temperature and pH-controlled bioreactor system is developed that can supply a whole ovary with oxygen and nutrients over several days and offers the possibility of hormone administration or the delivery of other drugs. This bioreactor was then tested with mature bovine ovaries. After appropriate cannulation, antithrombotic vascular perfusion, and antibiotic pretreatment, the ovaries were cultured for up to 9 days without any contamination or suffering major vital cell damage. The controlled application of oocyte stimulation hormones (human menopausal gonadotropin; hMG) also enabled successful in vitro follicle growth and maturation. From a technical point of view, there is still optimization potential for this bioreactor system, but in principle, it has been demonstrated that long-term ovary cultivation and in vitro maturation of follicles are possible, which opens up further potential for these and other applications.