The Embryo Biopsy

This video shows a day 5 blastocyst (grade 3AB) undergoing biopsy. The objective of a biopsy is to take 3 to 5 cells from the Trophectoderm that will then be tubed and sent to the genetics lab for testing. We keep the cells from each individual embryo in separate tubes so that we can identify results with the corresponding embryo.
We use a laser to split the cells during the biopsy taking care not to hit the junctions between the cells to avoid damaging the surrounding areas. The pulling action that you see used is to separate the cells from their junctions while keeping the outer edge cells intact.