Fight Infertility With Sperm-Injecting Robots

A startup called Overture Life has created a sperm-injecting robot that has successfully fertilized over a dozen eggs, resulting in the birth of twin girls in a major breakthrough for in-vitro fertilization (IVF) MIT University has reviewed the technology, which the company claims is the first step towards automating IVF and making it more accessible and affordable to people who need it but cannot afford it. IVF is a fertility treatment that involves fertilizing an egg with sperm outside of the body and then implanting the fertilized egg back into the uterus.

Although this treatment has helped produce 500,000 babies globally each year, many individuals who need IVF cannot access it due to financial or logistical barriers (1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
In Vitro Fertilization

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An Attempt to Increase Access to Fertility Medicine

Overture Life hopes that its technology will help increase access to fertility medicine, ultimately resulting in more babies being born through IVF.

Their engineers designed a sperm-injecting robot that was delivered to New Hope Fertility Centre in New York City. The robot was reassembled, and it included a microscope, a mechanized needle, a tiny petri dish, and a laptop.

Video Gamer to Fertility Injector

During the procedure, one of the engineers, who had no prior knowledge of fertility medicine, used a Sony PlayStation 5 controller to position a robotic needle. After viewing a human egg with a camera, it moved forward on its own, penetrating the egg and releasing a single sperm cell.

The procedures produced healthy embryos, according to the researchers, and now two baby girls have been born, whom they claim are the first people born after fertilization by a robot.

Infertility is defined by the World Health Organization as "a disease of the male or female reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse."

IVF is a medical advancement that helps infertile couples become pregnant, giving them hope of becoming parents. The procedure consists of several steps, including stimulation, also known as superovulation, egg retrieval, insemination and fertilization, embryo culture, and embryo transfer.

Sperm Injecting a Robot: Is Infertility Going to be a Thing of the Past Soon?

While the concept of the sperm-injecting robot is extraordinary, some fertility doctors have expressed doubts about its full potential. One doctor credited with developing the fertilization procedure known as intracytoplasmic sperm injection, or ICSI, in the 1990s said that Overture's researchers still required manual assistance for tasks such as loading a sperm cell into an injector needle (2^✔ ✔Trusted Source
The pioneering of intracytoplasmic sperm injection: historical perspectives

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"This is not yet robotic ICSI, in my opinion," he said. Nonetheless, the technology has promising implications for increasing access to fertility medicine and helping more people become parents through IVF.

References:

1. In Vitro Fertilization - (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK562266/)
2. The pioneering of intracytoplasmic sperm injection: historical perspectives - (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29046342/)

Source-Medindia