Azoospermia, the condition the method targets, means no sperm can be detected in a man’s semen using conventional testing. It affects about 10% of infertile men and roughly 1% of all men overall, according to the BBC.
Researchers said a robot isolates sperm within milliseconds, avoiding centrifugation, a spinning method that can damage fragile cells. Doctors can then use the sperm in in vitro fertilization, or IVF, where an egg is fertilized outside the body.
Zev Williams, director of the Columbia University Fertility Center, said that the method has found sperm in just under 30% of patients tested. These patients had previously been told they had no chance of producing usable sperm. He also said the method identified 40 times more sperm than manual searches by trained technicians, achieving a 100% sensitivity rate.
"Everyone was just jumping up and down with joy," Williams told the BBC. "There are so few things where the reward for all the effort that was put into it is something as wonderful and special as this. Now there's a baby girl and hopefully, God willing, many, many more."
"It's starting to feel really real now, especially because I'm feeling movement,” Penelope told the BBC. “We had our anatomy scan, and everything is just looking so great.”
