Dr Kiran Joshi, an Indian-origin entrepreneur's company, is working on Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based that can identify the healthiest sperm. This progression could help reduce the time and cost of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) pregnancies. Reportedly, even in men who eat well and exercise regularly, barely one in ten sperm are healthy. The algorithm had been built by scanning sperm from the ejaculates of more than 1,000 men, Dr Joshi told Daily Mail.
The algorithm, developed in the California-based Oma Clinic, scans the swimmers for their shape and how they move to pick the best ones to fertilize an egg. The development would improve success rates of IVF-induced births and reduce the rounds of treatment couples would need.
With sperm counts dropping over the years, according to studies, 40 per cent of infertility cases come down to the male partner. As per reports, lack of exercise, a poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle are to be blamed for low sperm count.
The samples that were scanned by the AI were donated by fertility clinics across the US and other countries and were mostly from men in their 30s and 40s.
'We have some sperm who swim in non-straight patterns, and sometimes we see sperm swimming in circles or in an aberrant way,' Dr Michael Guarnaccia, an embryologist who was also involved in developing the AI said while describing the process of studying the sperm. The AI allocates colour to the sperm-- red for unhealthy and green for healthy.
