X-ray holotomography of human ovarian tissue samples and monitoring cryopreservation effects

The knowledge of ovary’s sub-structures is highly required to support advances in reproductive technologies based on ovary tissue cryopreservation. The latter is an important clinical approach to preserve fertility of young women and pre-pubertal girls undergoing oncological therapies. This proposal aims at performing X-ray nano-imaging of human ovarian tissues subjected to cryopreservation and vitrification procedures, and of control ovarian tissues (i.e. not frozen specimens). The high-resolution evaluation will allow to access at the nanoscale unprecedented information on human ovary anatomy and it will be able to reveal any tiny structural effect induced by current cryopreservation methods. Moreover, we expect that this investigation will shed light on poor follicles’ survival rate after transplantation. Therefore, a total of 15 shifts has been requested in order to carry out the experiment.