In this episode of the AllPaths podcast, we speak with Will Baird, a father of three who grew up with a unique perspective on family building. Will shares how his father, a PhD in animal sciences who began working in human IVF in the late 80s/early 90s, exposed him to the lab environment from a young age. He and his twin sister, conceived through IUI, have fond memories of going to the IVF lab with his father on weekends. As an adult, Will worked alongside his father and ultimately became a fertility patient himself. Will openly shares the emotional experience of going through IVF as a patient, even while working in the field, highlighting in particular the challenge of managing expectations through the process of attrition – the natural decrease in the number of eggs and embryos from retrieval to blastocyst stage.
Inspired by the stress and false alarms associated with traditional cryostorage tank monitoring using simple methods like yardsticks and temperature probes that don’t indicate liquid nitrogen levels, Will talks about the shift his career path took to address this critical need. He is now CEO and co-founder of Boreas Monitoring Solutions, a company providing a weight-based monitoring system that sits under storage tanks to infer the liquid nitrogen level. Will’s focus is on raising awareness about this new technology and educating the next generation of embryologists about safer storage methods. Reflecting on his path, Will is grateful for being able to help families and contribute to the field in a way he feels has a significant impact, including keeping his last embryo safe as it sits in a tank monitored by his system.
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