Doctors at Columbia University’s fertility centre … have developed an imaging technology, Sperm Tracking and Recovery (STAR), which they believe could help couples who struggle to conceive.
In an article in The Lancet, Dr. Zev Williams, who leads the team, explains that the STAR system is an AI-based microfluidic platform that can identify and isolate a few sperm cells in semen samples rapidly and in real time.
Williams describes using this method to help a couple where the man has azoospermia, a condition where no sperm cells are present in the semen.
About 1 per cent of all men and roughly 10 to 15 per cent of men with fertility issues have this condition.
In a typical sperm sample, there may be between 100 and 300 million sperm cells. But in some cases, there are only a few. Even the best fertility experts can struggle to find them.
But the STAR system can go through several million images in just a few hours and find the few sperm cells that might be present.
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… The sperm cells can be carefully extracted and used in attempts to fertilise eggs.
Translated by Alette Bjordal Gjellesvik
