'Spermbots' Could Help Women Trying to Conceive (includes video)
By Phys.org,
Phys.org
| 01. 13. 2016
Sperm that don't swim well rank high among the main causes of infertility. To give these cells a boost, women trying to conceive can turn to artificial insemination or other assisted reproduction techniques, but success can be elusive. In an attempt to improve these odds, scientists have developed motorized "spermbots" that can deliver poor swimmers—that are otherwise healthy—to an egg. Their report appears in ACS' journal Nano Letters.
Artificial insemination is a relatively inexpensive and simple technique that involves introducing sperm to a woman's uterus with a medical instrument. Overall, the success rate is on average under 30 percent, according to the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority of the United Kingdom. In vitro fertilization can be more effective, but it's a complicated and expensive process. It requires removing eggs from a woman's ovaries with a needle, fertilizing them outside the body and then transferring the embryos to her uterus or a surrogate's a few days later.
Each step comes with a risk for failure. Mariana Medina-Sánchez, Lukas Schwarz, Oliver G. Schmidt and colleagues from the Institute for Integrative...
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