Getting Extra Time to Hatch

SWITZERLAND: A new device reconceives in vitro fertilization, allowing embryos more time in the womb

Andri Pol for TIME

Martin Velasco, CEO and co-founder of Anecova.

Although the science of creating babies in the lab — in vitro fertilization (IVF) — has improved since its birth in 1978, IVF has followed pretty much the same pattern. Sperm and eggs are combined in a petri dish; once an egg is fertilized, one or two embryos are transferred to the mother's uterus to implant and develop. But in 2003 a Swiss gynecologist, Pascal Mock, envisioned a new approach: instead of fertilizing and developing the embryo in a laboratory, do it in the most natural environment possible — a woman's womb. The novel idea hatched Anecova S.A, co-founded by Mock...

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