In this weeks show, Maria interview's David O'Rourke, a senior embryologist and fertility technologies expert and founder of Profertility.
In this weeks show, Maria interview's David O'Rourke, a senior embryologist and fertility technologies expert and founder of Profertility.
Profertility
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David: We want to think about Healthcare differently. We want to be proactive. instead of being real. which a lot of health. carriers were waiting for something to happen. But fertility is a silent disease.
Maria Hi, I'm Maria.
Roisin and I'm Roisin.
Maria and welcome to the Fitness Fertility Podcast. This podcast is all about... improving your physical fitness. can help support you on your very own fertility journey. I'm a personal trainer who specialises in training women with fertility problems. I myself have PCOS and have had two beautiful boys. and I'm on a mission. to help you do the same.
Roisin before we get into it. We will be discussing other things. such as where do babies come from. pregnancy loss and bereavement. We may also be sweary from time to time. optimistic. Light-hearted girls. but I know it's a really stressful time for some of our listeners. We respect that.
Maria In this week's episode of the Fitness Fertility Podcast. I am delighted to welcome David O'Rourke to the show. David is a senior embryologist with years of experience working in the UK's top fertility clinics. He's a specialist in egg freezing. and embryo biopsy. and he's a fertility technologies expert. David is consultant clinical embryologist at TriHealth. as well as being the founder of a number of organisations. including Bayer Fertility. IVF Tribe. and profitability. He's also a writer at Bio News. a researcher and a digital health enthusiast. David O'Rourke, welcome to the Fitness Fertility Podcast.
Thank you so much for having me. Could you start just by telling us about your back? ground and why you ended up working in fertility. Yeah, absolutely. So I think I probably came from a relatively unconventional back. And the only reason I say that is because I've never met anybody else who's kind of taken similar path. to me. I studied my undergrad. in biotech. biotechnology. and that's kind of focused a lot more on math. See you. than anything else. So, we did a lot of maths, a lot of engineering, and then did. kind of biology on the side. but I always gravitated towards the biology. So, whenever I finish my undergrad, I end up. moving over to London and doing a master's degree in. medical biotech. because I thought it was just such a super interesting subject. specifically, the genetic side of things. and I just love that I really. delved into us. And in that kind of master's, I really discovered. prenatal genetic screening and diagnosis. and that is. after embryos are created. You can take a couple of cells. you can sequence the DNA. and you can identify. Bye. specific hereditary genetic diseases. and you can take hereditary diseases out of families. And that means that that family will never have. Thus. Hereditary disease again like cystic fibrosis. like sickle cell. So conditions that impact people's lives. And I thought that this was. Absolutely incredible. and it was the way health. care should be. and That's why I ended up... becoming an embryologist because I have to become an embryologist in order to. to use the technology and That's kind of my roundabout. race. getting into the field in the first place. I see what you mean. You've started with the maths and the engineering; you've ended up in the embryology. A lot of my clients and a lot of ours. Listeners, they meet so many medical professionals. if you were to give a kind of textbook definition. How would you describe the work of an embryologist? So an embryologist or clinical embryologist, I suppose, is the protected term. Is there... a highly skilled clinical scientist. who in the layman's terms, they look after. to your embryos. when they've been taken out of. the ovaries. So when you take eggs out of the ovaries, they go into... the lab and the embryologist takes over. cheering them. period. They do the insemination, so the fertilization kind of. process. And then... they keep a very close eye on. The embryo's over. a period of five to six days. constantly looking at the embryos so they can... can use different techniques to select. the best embryo. to... Give. Couple. the highest chance of a successful life. We're only custodians. of other people's cells for a very short amount of time. and we're using Lots of. new tools and new sophisticated tools to age. that selection processes. So we're rather specialist for. a period of only a week. in. a lifetime of a person. I suppose. Honestly, it's so incredible. You're kind of there first. You're the first. human. that's looking after these. Embrus. That's a really incredible thing. Just as you were talking about that, I was kind of wondering... I'm sorry if this sounds like a silly question, but do you ever become a tat? to the embryos or is it such a clinical procedure that you... Just see it through the eyes of science. definitely aware of. the privileged position that you're in. being the first person to potentially. this embryo, put this sperm and egg together. I think embryologists are very proud of. It's crazy. Very beautiful embryos for people. We're able to take videos and pictures and show them to our patients. That's a really privileged thing to do as well. pressures high because It's such a privilege. and you're kind of getting down to the... the micro to Just get those little things. in the patient's favor. You definitely get attached to... to patients in your... You're always in their course. You want them to win. and be successful. There's so many factors that kind of go into that. David, I'm so interested in what you've just said about beautiful embryos. What makes a beautiful embryo? quite an embryology-centric. question. It's something that we totally obsess about. Crazy. Beautiful embryos and that could mean many different things. Beautiful embryo is something that. is. a euploid, which means that it's Gauss balanced chromosomes. which is something that we do with genetic testing. But then. from a visual side of the world. things. at beautiful. embryo or maybe a beautiful blast as this because it's kind of normally a rain. kind of day five. looks quite similar to those really old black and white stitched footballs. where you kind of. the different path. Cheers. what it actually looks like. is you. got first of all the Zona on the outside which is kind of a protein crust. which protects the cells inside for the first kind of week. Inside you have that perfected themselves, which are these. cells that are stitched. on the outside and there should be somewhere between. 90 to maybe 120 on five. the world read a uniform and and lovely and make. beautiful brain blastocyst. And then finally, you got. a group of cells in the inside called be intercell mass. And the inner somnolases are very tight. clump of cells connected to the inside. of the trifecta derma, then there's a lot of liquid inside. and those inner cell mass cells. go on directly to be the baby. There the cells that. develop on eventually. to create. that kind of baby and the trifecta themselves on the outside. they develop on to be the placenta. upset already. It's such a privileged to to be able to. see these things and some of the technology that we use around. Time Lumps. where we take pictures of the embryo over. 11 different focal planes every 10 minutes. we actually get to watch videos. of these embryos developing. forming into these. beautiful glassesists. which is a real. privilege. We did an episode on the IVF. extras add-ons and obviously we just touched on it in a light way but When I was researching it for the show and obviously I was looking at all these images and I was reading around it. It's really incredible. So what you were saying about taking pictures every 10 minutes on the kind of different planes, it is kind of mind boggling. Do you keep in touch? with. Patience and do they ever send you pictures of? the baby and the two-year-old and the five-year-old and You're kind of there going, I knew you and you were three cells old. You were a beautiful embryo. Does that ever happen? Do you ever see them a little bit later on in life? Yeah, it happens. all the time. It's such a lovely thing and some patience. go the extra mile and that. they bring their children in. Oh. They're so happy and they're so... Thanks all. And it's... such a lovely thing to experience. I'm actually really emotional, David. I know that you probably get used to it because... You did it a lot and I didn't know what Embraerologists did but the way you talk about it. is actually really quite emotional. One of the other things I wanted to ask... with your specialist knowledge of IVF, you know, write down literally to the kind of cells that fingers crossed grow into A beautiful baby. Could you give us... pieces of advice. things listeners can actually control in their own lifestyle. the might just help nudge them. towards being in a better situation before they start IVF. biggest. impact.. on the successful outcome of a site. is the female age. and It's not quite a cruel thing. biology doesn't catch up with. the speed of society. The female age is such a critical thing. in determining the outcome of the cycle. If. Anybody's listening who's kind of. thinking about. Having a family, I suppose the advice is really just... do things as early as you can. And I know that's easier said than done. other things that we talk about. to prepare people for cycles are things like. BMI. So we know. over certain BMI success rate. Draw. quite significantly. We're always telling people to be. in. Best. possible healthy condition they can be. because fertility is so delicate. when... You've got fluctuations in weight. can see that female cycle stop. or if there's times of high stress, it can really affect. your cycles. So fertility is so delicate. The obvious ones being healthy are ranked. Dias. I reign. BMI and waist. big aspects in their own race. environment. which sometimes is unavoidable like We're living in cities now. and cities are more. pollutant and we can see. Pollution have an impact on fertility. Mm-hmm. and also mental health. It's not an easy process to get into. So. It's always. advisable to prepare yourself as much as possible. equally. physical roller coaster, but also it's a real mental roller coaster. Go through. an IVF cycle. So there's kind of many aspects that need to be. brought together and They need to be nurtured. couples or individuals need to have their support networks and... People don't talk a lot about when they're... going into IVF because there's still the shame around it. There's a lot of people there. potentially support. And I've kind of mentioned quite a few different things there that are all. quite. BIG. buckets in their own rice. but it's really about tackling it head on. and being as in. formed as possible about. your specific case, your body, and what the best of course is. coaches. for you. Absolutely. And we've had a few fantastic. Guess that... experts on the show and the key thing that keeps coming out is it has to be... specific for that particular person. Saying that though. I am going to push you a little bit because I know that our listeners will be screaming. they're gonna want an age. When you're talking about the age of an individual... or maybe the age of the egg. perhaps, but is there an age where fertility does start to decline and if so, if anyone is over that age, guess the advice would be to freeze the eggs? Is that the type of advice you would give? So at the moment, I've worked in the UK and... HFIA are our governing body and what they do is they break up. the age groups because it is so age-related, there's so much waste. going into. the decision and the outcome based on age. When we look at statistics, we look at... 35 and below. as being as the best possible age. and then it starts to decline from 35. five. 42 At the moment in the UK, not to get too technical. both. the HFDA has just actually released some data. all the clinics and they put it all together and what they say is that if you're under 35. and you transfer a single embryo. your chance of having a live. first. from that. embryo is about 45%. And that changes to... about 5% when you're 42. So. There's a drastic change from. 35. 42 where you know, from 25. 35 there isn't radio change So fertility really kind of. I wouldn't say. but it starts to really decline when you're... 35. And so that's a real. milestone or a number that we... where I was kind of advising, trying to start. family before that because. you're less likely to kind of run into. Wow. Okay, 35. 35 indeed Sorry to interrupt. But do you know that I offer a two week free trial on all my training plans? This means you have access to my fertility-focused training plans. meal plans. and accountability calls. for the duration of your trial. For more information and to sign up to start your free trial, Get in touch. and info. fitnessfutility.com and now. Back to the show. I know you've kind of stepped away from the clinical facing a role. and you are very heavily involved in the future of IVF and for treatment. I know from speaking to you and going to places like The Fertility Show that the tech involved in fertility now. is just huge. So I just wondered if you could tell us a little bit more about why you've stepped away and the kind of tech side of it. and its Yeah, absolutely. I think... My story. about stepping away I think was really difficult. and I loved clinical work. kind of. being face to face with. people and... and really solving problems. and being hands-on. being custodian of these embryos that were going through the lab. And hopefully, you know. changing people's lives. and helping make the family that they want. But I think for me personally, I came to a realization. BASS. in a clinic. I've only got the capacity to help people who kind of. Come in the door. and I don't have the capacity to help anybody beyond that. I felt... a little bit limited. by my ability to... to really have an impact. You can see fertility is... I wouldn't say it's a growing issue, but it's just... people are becoming more aware of this. and It's. being normalized. It's. a growing issue on a number of fronts, like both socially, but. economically and medically. and I so that stepping away. and putting my Hen... towards creating solutions for people. but they could. used. At home. or that they could use with technology. and use kind of Medtech. and devices. I shout that. if I stepped away from my clinical role. I could use my knowledge experience. even use that. biotech degree that I never used when I was in Phoenix. to. kind of bring back into the fray, bring the mats back. can. and really try and... I figure I might help. people on a much bigger scale. with solutions. And that's kind of my personal journey in. into selling up some companies and kind of inventing some devices. and I think on a wider scale. We're talking a lot about AI these days. and Embryology and fertility hasn't. being avoided. in that sense. embryologists are now using AI as it tool to help select the embryos. and help identify embryos in what we call morphic kinetics. which is just the development. pattern. of the embryo. the division pattern of the cells. So it should go from. one to two and two to four. for it to ace. Plus. If it. doesn't go through that normal pattern. then we. can maybe give it a lower score. in our scaling process. We're looking at that in labs. We're also looking at automation. because some of the procedures that we do do are repetitive. So if we can order MACE, we can... make it a lot more efficient. We can do a lot more cycles. and we can treat a lot more people. so we can automate. some of those processes. Now the automation is a little bit. further behind in terms of its developments where AI is There's a few. different players who are. bringing some interesting. days. to the field. That's really where the development is. in terms of the doctor. Actors. and the medication that hasn't changed in 20 or 30 years. Plus. There's been massive innovation leaks in labs. and mad tech. in Femtech. in devices. And. There's a lot of solutions that are coming into the field, onto the market. that are looking really interesting. Quite exciting. on this note. Just to explain to people, you and I have met. through air pro-fertility which, speaking of solutions in helping people.
is Amazing. Thank you. It's basically doing everything you've just said, the key things with fertility. from what I can see are. Time? because we've talked by age. and you did mention it but money. and it can be incredibly expensive for people to have to go through the fertility process. So if tech can in any way help with those two things. That would be massive. Could you tell us a little bit about profitability and what it is you're doing? Yeah, absolutely. Profitivity was founded by myself and my two co-founders, so that's Toyin and Charlotte, and we all work in the future. in the industry. We all came together out of the same motivation to do something different. We saw a lot of people going through IVF cycles. not discovering. that they had. problem until it was way too late. And so we wanted to help and we wanted. create a solution. to really people inside. before they even knew that there was any That was really our goal and that was what we asked ourselves when we started this kind of journey. what we decided to do. was We want to create a company. the knee. That's going to give amazing insights. It's going to be accessible, so you do everything from home. it's going to be affordable. E. created. products. to do clinical level testing. from your home. we send out. kits to do pathology tests so that... Lots for. men and women. And then also we've got an Andrology Kiss, which is a semen analysis kiss. And what that is, is we send our... kits to your home. You. Take samples, a blood sample or a semen sample, and then you send it back to our labs. and we do the analysis of. those samples. in conjunction with us. We also take data in terms of lifestyle. So we look at all of those factors that we've talked about. We look at. environmental. we look at your mental health. and we look at your physical health. as well. because all of those life factors. as I said. really play a role. on the outcome of fertility as it's so sensitive. and with all of that data. were able to. to identify areas. for individuals. that are lower. than they potentially should be. And this is what we're going to be able to identify. This is how we're going to give those insights. So we're going to be able to say. for any. person that might come in. that they wouldn't necessarily know themselves. that. there's a specific area potentially in their lifestyle. That is. impacting their fertility and they might not know about it. And so we're going to identify it. this person in contact with one of our lovely specialists. like yourself. Thank you so much, David. Thank you so much. Hahaha And we're going to put therapeutic. plans in place. so we can solve problems and we. I think it's really important that we... identify these potential problems as early as we possibly can. So we have. time to make the change. time to make. the intervention. Age. isn't going to be that major factor anymore. we wanna think about. healthcare differently. We want to be proactive. instead of being reactive. which a lot of health. as we're waiting for something to happen. But fertility is a silent disease. You don't know that. Something is... potentially Wrong. until you start to try and and have a. a family and then it could be a year before you're diagnosed. because infertility. is diagnosed. Bye. not conceiving. while trying to. for 12 months. that time's kind of easing away all. all the time. We want to. reading gauges or it usually possibly and on your own until the next time! We are bringing you aoven'svalve-the-" Brewated Vegan emulate other industries that are doing it like the dental industry. and have people go for regular checkups. Get tested, make sure they're aware. and we can see it with kind of younger generations who... who are like young professionals. they're working on it. They're in stable relationships. and are doing. full fertility screenings. I want to have a family. And I want to have a family in the future, but I. I think I should know about this now. if there is anything I... need to do, I can do it now, and not in five years' time when... those statistics might. be considerably lower. We're really trying to take this proactive approach to health. proactive approach to fertility. I'm really excited about it. I think we're going to really help a lot of people. The thing that makes Profitability different is You're getting in before they even know that there might be a problem. being proactive rather than react. and that's huge because like you've just said it can take years you know As I'm sure you know endometriosis can take 10 years to get a diagnosis. this holistic approach to their care. This could... be life changing for people who may be able to have a family when otherwise they might not have been. incredibly exciting and you and your team have done an amazing job getting it all up and running. Thank you. When are you launching and how will people find out more about this? Because if I was still currently trying to conceive. I would be getting you in Google immediately. Where can we find you? We are going out nice and slowly. and you can... find us at profraternity. com. We also have an app. as well that you're going to be able to download. everything can be done through your phone. I'm really excited about. getting it out in the world and starting to help people. You know, as I said, we're. We're trying to do something different. compiled a really unique group of specialists. as you were talking about endometriosis and other things like... polycystic ovaries, we can sit down and... create specific. packages for them. where we put them in contact with the people that they need to. so we can make a change. as quickly as possible in their lives. because it's debilitating these things. We want to start making a difference. I'm just really excited to kind of get out. there and. and start engaging with. people and doing all the good that we want to. It's going to be a game changer for so many people. We will put the links to everything in the show notes so people will be able to find you very, very easily. David, it has been an absolute pleasure talking to you and I know our listeners will be very, very grateful for you sharing all of your information. A massive thank you for coming on the show. Thank you so much for having me. It's been really awesome to talk about this. Isn't David just the most impressive? person. Yes. and going from Allah. to recognizing that. There was only a certain. full coming through the door. and then wanting to apply all of his skills including his math skills. to have. a greater impact. on women and couples. that are trying to conceive. Like that's pretty cool. He has this incredible scientific knowledge. He has this incredible... Passion. for helping others in this fertility space. and he really does want to be able to reach out and help more people. than he was able to do when he was working in the lab. And I love the combination of kind of... humanity and science. his company, you know, ProFertility, him and his two co-founders. is Very impressive.
trying to help people. way before they would normally be helped. So it's something we've talked about before with regards to age. He's trying to get in there early. because we know that the clock is always ticking. and hopefully... By other people having access more quickly, it will just save them a lot of pain and heartache. So it's a really amazing business that he's built up. Pro-fertility is absolute. Absolutely worth it. Checking out. Absolutely, and we send our cars for regular checkups. Why don't we send ourselves? And we know that age is such a critical factor. infertility. But you know, let's get ahead of it. It's absolutely the right thing to do. Very impressive. I wish him all the very best. So Maria What will we be talking about? next week. in next week's show. I will be focusing on how to train before, during and after. after IVF. And the reason that I am talking about this next week is because I have had for pregnancy announcements in the last four weeks. all from clients who have gone through IVF. So I am really looking forward to delving into what we did and how we did it. pregnancy announcements. in four weeks. That's a record. That's a record. It's a record. I'm very emotional and... It goes without saying, but I am absolutely delighted for all of them. Thank you so much for listening to this week's show. Remember to subscribe to get a shiny new episode each week. and please write, comment and really importantly share with your friends. especially our trying to conceive sisters. You never know who's struggling and they may need that little bit of extra help. This may come as a surprise, but we are not done. And I want to thank you We strongly recommend that you consult with your doctor before beginning any. exercise and nutrition program. Everything checked out first. Your safety. is. our priority. This has been a worth. and listen. production.