Last spring, engineers from Barcelona shipped their sperm-injecting robot to New York City's New Hope Fertility Center, where they reassembled the instrument, including a microscope, mechanized needle, petri dish, and laptop. An engineer with no experience in fertility medicine then used a PlayStation 5 controller to position the robotic needle, which autonomously penetrated a human egg and delivered a single sperm cell. Over a dozen eggs were fertilized using the robot, resulting in healthy embryos and eventually two baby girls.

The robot, developed by startup Overture Life, represents an initial step towards automating in vitro fertilization (IVF) and potentially making the procedure more affordable and widespread. Currently, trained embryologists earning over $125,000 per year delicately handle sperm and eggs using ultra-thin hollow needles under a microscope in IVF labs. Overture envisions an automated process, with their patent application describing a "biochip" containing hidden reservoirs of growth fluids and small channels for sperm.

Santiago Munné, chief innovation officer at Overture Life, believes that if IVF could be performed in a desktop instrument, patients might not need to visit specialized clinics, where a single attempt at pregnancy can cost $20,000 in the US. Instead, a patient's eggs could be directly input into an automated fertility system at a gynecologist's office, significantly reducing costs.

With approximately 500,000 children born through IVF globally each year, automating the process could increase access to fertility medicine for those who cannot afford or access it. However, fully automating IVF is challenging, as test-tube conception involves numerous procedures, and Overture's robot currently performs only one of them and only partially.

Some doctors are skeptical that robots can or should replace embryologists soon, while others see automation playing a more limited role, such as dispensing consistent droplets of growth medium for embryos. Despite the hurdles, automating parts of the IVF process could make it less expensive and pave the way for more radical innovations like gene editing or artificial wombs.

Sources and References

MIT Technology Review