The first-ever babies conceived using a sperm-injecting robot have been born, marking a breakthrough development in fertility medicine. Engineers from Barcelona used a robotic needle to insert sperm cells into eggs, resulting in the birth of two healthy baby girls at the New Hope Fertility Center in New York City.
One of the engineers, who lacked experience in fertility medicine, used a Sony PlayStation 5 controller to position the robotic needle, which moved independently to penetrate the egg and release a single sperm cell.
The success of this cutting-edge procedure has significant implications for the future of In vitro fertilisation (IVF) by potentially reducing costs and making the procedure more accessible.
Overture Life, the startup company that developed the robot, hopes to automate IVF, thereby reducing the need for expensive and trained embryologists who currently handle eggs and sperm using ultra-thin needles under a microscope.
With around 500,000 children born via IVF each year, this technology could be a game-changer in making fertility medicine more common and affordable. According to Santiago Munne, chief geneticist of Overture Life, the technology could one day eliminate the need for patients to visit a fertility clinic, where the cost of a single attempt to get pregnant can be as high as $20,000 in the US.
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