Smileband health topics

A team in Germany has developed tiny robot suits that can help sperm become more mobile, solving one of the biggest causes of infertility in men. If the researchers can successfully replicate their lab results inside the human body, it could be a new option for couples struggling to conceive. These 'spermbots' are miniature metal helixes just large enough to completely wrap around the tail of a single sperm and help it along its way towards the egg. The bots are powered with the assistance of a magnetic field controlled by the scientists, though all of the experiments undertaken so far have been with bull sperm in the confines of a petri dish. Once the sperm has reached its target and become embedded in the egg, the metal casing can reverse direction to detach itself. Our results indicate that metal-coated polymer microhelices are suitable for this task due to potent, controllable, and non-harmful 3D motion behaviour," explains the report. 

"Despite the fact that there still remain some challenges on the way to achieve successful fertilisation with artificially motorised sperms, we believe that the potential of this novel approach toward assisted reproduction can be already put into perspective with the present work.