IVF treatment has been used by couples who have difficulty conceiving a baby since it was invented in 1978. In Malaysia this treatment is quite expensive with it reaching around RM13,000. This is because there are many manual processes required for the fertilization process outside the body. According to a report by MIT Technology Review, two babies have been successfully delivered using the help of a robot and a PlayStation 5 controller.
Spanish startup Overture Life says its fertilization robot has been successfully used by couples in the United States. A robot that assists in fertilization is sent to New York from Barcelona by Overture Life to a clinic. This robot is then used to inject sperm into an ovum.
What makes this procedure interesting is that a technician is required to guide the sperm-filled needle towards the ovum. This is done with the PlayStation 5 DualSense controller. After that the robot injects the sperm into the ovum prepared in a petri dish. The resulting embryo then produces a pair of newly born baby girls.
The purpose of this fertilization robot was developed to reduce the expensive cost of IVF. It can replace the human embryological task of performing the same process manually using hands.
Even though robots successfully assist in the fertilization process, the process of attaching the embryo to the woman's uterus still requires the expertise of human technicians. Therefore the automation process for IVF using robots has not yet been fully achieved.