Institut Marquès celebrate their 100th anniversary

24-Feb-2022

This year, the Spanish IVF clinic Institut Marquès is celebrating their centenary, reaffirming ourselves as a family and personal project with a wonderful goal: excellence.

Institut Marquès owes its name to the family whose members have represented the unity and continuity of the centre over time. Its founder, Dr Vicens Marquès i Bertrán, began practising as a gynaecologist in 1922.

Throughout this time, the vocation for gynaecology has been passed down from generation to generation: to Dr Leonardo Marquès Giraut, son of Dr Vicens Marquès; to his grandson, Dr Leonardo Marquès Amorós and to his great-grandson, Dr Borja Marquès López-Teijón. Under the guidance of Dr Marisa López-Teijón, the current director of the centre, Institut Marquès has introduced the most innovative medical techniques in its country and has become an international reference centre in Assisted Reproduction, which continues to create families all over the world, after 100 years of history.

Excellence and innovation

Institut Marquès is constantly carrying out innovative scientific studies to improve assisted reproduction treatments. Music, mobile technology, telemedicine and the use of virtual reality are some of the innovations that we are already using in our clinics.

We have developed a world pioneer innovation project aiming to improve IVF by implementing music in all our embryo incubators in our assisted reproduction laboratories. Our scientific studies have demonstrated that musical microvibrations produce movements similar to those that fertilised eggs experience in their journey through the fallopian tubes and the uterus; they stir the culture medium, achieving a more homogeneous distribution of nutrients and scattering the waste metabolites. The use of music represents a significant advance in order to reproduce in our laboratories the natural conditions that embryos would have if they were in the maternal uterus. It is also a key factor of the increase of our success rates.

On the other hand, mobile phones have turned into another technological ally in order to improve the results of fertility treatments. The Embryomobile app, developed by Institut Marquès, allows parents a real time follow-up of their embryos while they are in the incubator from any location. It is a commitment to transparency that, furthermore, considerably reduces the stress of the mother before the embryo transfer, favouring the implantation in order to achieve pregnancy. Institut Marquès is the only centre where patients can really see what their embryos look like.

Telemedicine is the medicine of the future. In this area, Institut Marquès is using videoconferences to communicate with patients all over the world. 

In addition, the centre has developed and patented the Sperm Freezekit. This new technique allows patients to cryopreserve their sperm anywhere in the world and send it to the clinic, without having to travel. This is a practical and convenient solution for males who are away from home and who have difficulties for travelling to the clinic to undergo fertility treatment with their partner or, simply, for privacy reasons.

And, still thinking about the male, the sample collection rooms at Institut Marquès have an evocative design and include erotic devices to improve sexual arousement, such as virtual reality glasses. This is the Erotic Personal System, a special protocol for obtaining the best sperm because Institut Marquès’ studies have established a link between improved semen quality and the erotic visual stimulation through virtual reality.

In the future, Institut Marquès will continue to innovate and adapt around its latest findings to ensure it remains successful in all of its endeavours.