Text/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Zhang Hua
Correspondent Wen Juan Huang Yixin
Photo/provided by interviewee
Recently, two baby girls who used sperm injection robots to complete insemination were born, which is also the world's first cases of robots successfully "gestation" babies. For a while, "robot insemination" became the focus of attention. Some experts believe that this is the first step towards automating in vitro fertilization (IVF), which may make artificial insemination cheaper and more common than it is today.
Dr. Jiang Manxi, head of the embryology laboratory of the Reproductive Medicine Center of Guangdong Second People's Hospital, pointed out that this is the first step in IVF automation, and may even be fully automated in the future. The emergence of microinjection robots is undoubtedly a boon for embryologists.
Sperm injection robot
Microinjection robot allows embryologist to "lower blood pressure"
It is understood that IVF technology includes two major parts: clinical doctor's examination, medication and laboratory embryologist's operation. Among them, the embryologist's technique includes a number of complex mental work and manual operations, such as egg picking, semen processing, in vitro fertilization, embryo observation, embryo selection, etc., and long-term monotonous manual operations are easy to cause embryologists to have problems in physical and mental health.
Micromanipulator
An online health questionnaire showed that embryologists had worse physical and mental health than the general population, with the most common problems being exhaustion, musculoskeletal aspects and some mental health disorders, and more than 3% of people experienced vision and hearing problems, and the risk of shoulder strain or pain increased with increased working hours. Laboratory automation can greatly reduce the risk of operator errors while improving work efficiency, reducing work stress, and protecting the physical and mental health of embryologists.
Therefore, with the assistance of microinjection robots, for embryologists, the complexity of manual operation will be greatly reduced, which is undoubtedly a boon.
"IVF" laboratory
The injection speed and precision are not as fast as human manual levels
At present, although sperm injection robots have achieved certain success, the current technology is still in the initial research stage, and there is still a certain distance from large-scale promotion and application.
At the NEWHOPE clinic, Overture Life engineers reportedly assembled all the instruments they needed for their sperm injection robot: a microscope, an injection needle mechanical control system, a micromanipulation dish and a laptop. An engineer with no embryo experience then mechanized the microinjection needle through a Sony PlayStation 5 controller. By viewing a human egg through a camera, the robot can automatically control the needle tip to move forward, penetrate and release a sperm into the egg. In total, the robot fertilized more than a dozen eggs, and eventually two babies were born.
"IVF" laboratory
At present, sperm injection robots have many areas that need to be improved in their control principle, control accuracy, injection speed and safety. For example, the system is controlled by the PlayStation 5 controller, which has not achieved true automation, and is still far from the final realization of one-button automatic injection.
In addition, at present, in terms of injection speed and injection accuracy, robots cannot reach the technical level of human manual operation. "Manual sperm injection is a relatively delicate work, because the quality of eggs may vary greatly between different patients, automated injection may cause great damage to the eggs of some special patients, and manual operation can reduce this risk by targeted and individualized treatment." Dr. Jiang Manxi said.
Dr. Jiang Manxi said that it is certain that the success of sperm injection robots is undoubtedly groundbreaking for assisted reproductive technology, at least a new step in the field of reproductive technology.
The future may be fully automated, but it still needs to be approached with caution
Ou Xianghong, director of the Reproductive Medicine Center of the Second People's Hospital of Guangdong Province, pointed out that the technology has taken the first step in the operation of unmanned assisted reproduction laboratories, and it is believed that it will be fully automated in the near future.
Since the robotic sperm injection technology is not perfect, there may be more attention and controversy in the industry in terms of clinical promotion and application. Ou Xianghong believes that the excessive intervention of robots may weaken the humanistic spirit necessary for medicine, and machines cannot completely replace human logical thinking, active exploration and emotional communication between doctors and patients; In addition, the use of technology may raise ethical and moral issues, such as safety during machine operation and its long-term impact on reproductive health. Therefore, we still need to be cautious about its future promotion and application, and must carefully test within an ethical and regulatory framework to obtain solid evidence of patient benefits before it can be promoted.
Editor: He Ning