First babies made with “sperm robot” are born

First babies made with “sperm robot” are born.

Engineers used a robotic needle to insert sperm cells into eggs at the New Hope Fertility Center in New York City — resulting in two healthy embryos and ultimately two baby girls, according to MIT’s Technology Review.

“It’s wild, isn’t it?” said one of the infants’ fathers, who asked to be anonymous. “Until now it had always been done manually.”

The technology could one day eliminate the need for patients to visit a fertility clinic, where a single attempt at getting pregnant can cost $20,000 in the US, said Santiago Munné, chief geneticist of the Spanish company Overture Life, which developed the sperm robot.

“[IVF] has to be cheaper. And if any doctor could do it, it would be,”said Munné. The fertility breakthrough involved using a remote-controlled needle and a camera to penetrate the eggs in a petri dish, potentially eliminating the need for highly-paid embryologists, according to the report.