Preliminary Study of Real-Time Detection of Chicken Embryo Viability Using Photoplethysmography

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Vaccine Production Technology
• Biosensing

Background:

• Influenza vaccine production relies on chicken embryo viability detection, a critical quality control step.
• Current manual candling methods for embryo viability assessment are inaccurate and pose occupational health risks.
• Microbial contamination of non-viable embryos can compromise vaccine batch quality.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a novel real-time embryo viability detection system using photoplethysmography (PPG) technology.
• To overcome the limitations of manual candling and existing automated methods in embryo viability assessment.
• To enhance the quality control standards in influenza vaccine production.

Main Methods:

• Development of a hardware circuit for collecting chicken embryo PPG signals.
• Implementation of customized software for real-time signal filtering and time-frequency-domain analysis.
• Experimental validation including source-detector arrangement, embryo discrimination, and multi-day signal detection.

Main Results:

• The PPG-based system achieved 100% accuracy in discriminating between viable and non-viable embryos (15 viable, 5 non-viable).
• 100% successful multi-day PPG signal capture was achieved for viable embryos from days 10-14.
• Consistent performance was observed across different developmental stages of the embryos.

Conclusions:

• The developed PPG system offers a non-invasive and accurate alternative for embryo viability detection.
• This technology has significant implications for standardizing vaccine production quality control.
• The system advances optical biosensing applications for biological viability assessment.