Two healthy babies conceived by a sperm-injecting robot controlled by a PlayStation 5 controller are born in Spain
- The robot carried a small IVF needle and deposited sperm into female eggs
- The experiment aims to make IVF more accessible to hopeful parents
Two babies were born after a robot guided by a Playstation 5 controller fertilized human eggs.
The procedure, completed in Barcelona, involved engineering student Eduard Alba maneuvering a small IVF needle containing sperm cells, which were then deposited into eggs.
This new way of fertilizing, invented by startup Overture Life, aims to make it possible for women to get pregnant in a cheaper and more accessible way, as in vitro fertilization, or IVF, can cost thousands.
In IVF treatment, specialists remove an egg from the woman’s ovaries and fertilize it with male sperm in a laboratory.
It can be difficult to achieve successful conception the first time, creating a huge bill for hopeful parents.
Two healthy babies were born after a robot guided by a Playstation 5 controller fertilized human eggs
Speak up MIT Technology Review, Alba said, ‘I was calm. Right at that moment I thought: “it’s just an experiment”.
“As a result, Overture can now claim to have given birth to two healthy girls, the first ever to be fathered by a robot.”
However, experts believe that much more research is needed before this style of fertilization becomes common.
Others are less convinced. Director of Columbia University’s fertility clinic, Zev Williams, said humans are currently better at fertilization than machines.
“You pick up a sperm, put it into an egg with as little trauma as possible, as gently as possible. (Right now) humans are much better than a machine,” he said.
However, the startup wants to move forward with their research on sperm-injecting robots and has already raised $37 million for further research, with a big support from former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki.
