THE USE OF NEURAL NETWORKS IN DEVELOPING NOVEL EMBRYO CULTURE MEDIA-FORMULATIONS

Rapid advances in computational technology, especially the development of commercially available, user-friendly software running on high-cap acity and highspeed computer workstations, are presenting new tools fo r analyzing complex, interactive data. One of the important applicatio ns of these emerging techniques is to study the intricate interactions between molecules in artificial culture media and their importance fo r in vitro cell propagation. In this paper we describe our experience using a commercial artificial intelligence system to identify substrat es and substrate concentrations essential for in vitro bovine embryoni c development. Using the ''optimize'' function of the software system, we were able to significantly improve the progression of bovine embry os to the blastocyst stage.