Lay summary
Pacific people experience higher infertility rates than other ethnic groups, yet they have reduced access to assisted reproductive technologies (ART). The tendency against ART can be partly attributed to the use of the Body Mass Index (BMI) as a priority metric in the clinical assessment of eligible patients. However, BMI fails to consider body composition and disproportionately impacts the eligibility of Pasifika women. Instead, increased adiposity is hypothesised to be a more relevant factor than the contentious BMI metric when assessing ART eligibility in patients. This internship aims to develop a methodology for analysing lipids in ovarian follicles under conditions mimicking dyslipidaemia. This will be done using the sensitive and accurate instrumentation, liquid-chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The successful development of this methodology will be implemented in wider research that investigates the detrimental impacts of increased adiposity on ART outcomes to better assist Pacific people in their access to ART.