Researchers at the University of Tennessee have developed advanced embryo culture media/systems that improve IVP cattle embryo developmental kinetics. The systems involve conditioning current standard IVP cattle embryo culture media using epithelial cells collected from bovine oviducts and uteri. Data from two recent studies suggests that the conditioned media/systems improves IVP cattle embryo (blastocyst) formation, time to formation and quality. Ongoing research is aimed at determining if the conditioned media can improve quality of cryogenically frozen embryos and post-embryo transfer survival. The researchers are also characterizing the media to identify oviduct and uterine molecules important for embryonic development.​

Compared to Control media (CON-CON), advanced embryo culture media/systems improve (A) Day 7 IVP bovine blastocyst formation rate (percent of 16-32 cell embryos that reached the blastocyst stage), (B) Day 8 IVP blastocyst quality scores (lower score indicates better quality) and (C) Day 7 IVP bovine embryo time to blastocyst.​