History Made With First Baby From Robotic IVF
Researchers have announced the birth of the first baby conceived using a robot-assisted fertilization process — marking a significant milestone in reproductive technology.
The infant, born to a 40-year-old woman in Guadalajara, Mexico, was conceived after an earlier in vitro fertilization (IVF) attempt yielded only one viable egg and no embryos. This time, conception occurred through a fully automated, digitally guided version of a common IVF technique known as intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI).
ICSI typically involves an embryologist manually injecting a single sperm cell directly into an egg. This delicate procedure requires 23 steps and depends heavily on the skill of the technician. In contrast, the new method uses a robotic system operated remotely — in this case by teams in both Guadalajara and New York, over 2,000 miles apart.
The automated system is designed to handle each step of the process with extreme precision. It selects a sperm, immobilizes it using a laser, and completes the injection into the egg — all under digital control or AI guidance.
“With the aid of artificial intelligence, the robot selects and prepares sperm with a level of accuracy that surpasses human ability,” explained lead researcher Gerardo Mendizabal Ruiz, who directs the Computational Perception Laboratory at the University of Guadalajara.
In this clinical study, five eggs were fertilized using the automated process, while three were handled by human embryologists using conventional ICSI. All three eggs in the manual group fertilized successfully, along with four of the five from the automated group.
A single high-quality embryo from the robot-assisted group was implanted into the mother, resulting in a successful pregnancy and the birth of a healthy baby boy.
Jacques Cohen, an embryologist at Conceivable Life Sciences — the company that developed and funded the automated system — described the technology as a breakthrough in the field, emphasizing its potential to increase precision, efficiency, and consistency in fertility treatment.
Although the robotic process currently takes around 10 minutes per egg — slightly longer than manual methods — researchers anticipate that refinements will significantly cut down this time.
Plans are underway for further clinical trials to confirm the technology’s reliability and effectiveness across a larger group of patients.
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