A sperm’s job for fertilization is not very difficult. His job is to swim quickly to the egg and fuse with it, right? But some people have a condition where the sperm cannot swim well. In such cases, the sperm is no longer able to combine with the egg, and the child cannot be born. This is medically known as asthenozoospermia. According to medical experts, up to 80% of infertile men have slow sperm motility.
There is currently no cure for this disease. Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) is a method of directly injecting the sperm into the egg, but it is expensive and difficult, so it is not 100% successful.
Scientists in Germany have been able to demonstrate that using tiny robots that use nanotechnology can help sperm that can’t swim. In 2016, they presented the results of their research and experiments in the nanotechnology journal Nano Letters. This experiment was conducted by experts from the Institute for Integrative Nanosciences at IFW Dresden, Germany. These scientists have developed tiny motors to help sperm swim.
These small motors are called Spermbot. The main part of this spam bot is a micromotor that is very small and can be seen with a microscope. This motor is actually a long spiral coil. This disc wraps around the tip of the sperm. When this motor rotates, it gets a force to go forward, so the sperm goes forward.
The energy required for this motor to go is made to operate using magnetic force from the outside. Also, this external magnetic wave is what indicates the direction this motor will go. As this spiral moves forward, it carries the sperm along with it.
When the sperm meets the egg and penetrates inside, the spiral motor surrounding it falls off and remains. In addition, the magnetic waves used cannot harm sperm or eggs. Therefore, these small nanorobots can be safely used between living cells in the human body.
This experiment was conducted in a laboratory test cup (a Petri dish). During this experiment, they were able to successfully move healthy sperm from one place to another in the test cup. The video below captures the migration of sperm with the Spermbot.
These tiny nanorobots are 50 microns long (1 micron = 1/1,000,000 meter, one millionth of a meter long) and 5.8 microns wide. It is made of iron and titanium alloy nanoparticles.
This method is said to be much cheaper compared to other artificial insemination methods. Artificial insemination costs thousands of dollars and requires repeated attempts without success.
So far, this nanotechnology is still in the experimental stage in the laboratory. So far, it has not been tested on humans. Researchers are not yet sure how a woman’s immune system will respond to these tiny nanorobots. Also, sometimes these little robots get stuck in the sperm’s tip. But this research shows what kind of performance nanorobots can achieve.
Nanoexperts are planning to use this sperm robot technology not only to help in reproduction but also in other areas. In another experiment, they were able to demonstrate that using these nanorobots could deliver cancer drugs to cancer cells. Researchers believe that these spermoids will soon be widely used.
