A case has been revealed of an American couple, who struggled to conceive for 18 years despite multiple attempts at artificial insemination, finally becoming pregnant with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). According to a CNN report on the 3rd (local time), the couple, who chose to remain anonymous, repeatedly underwent in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments at infertility centers worldwide. However, they faced repeated failures due to a rare condition in the husband, known as azoospermia, which is the absence of sperm in the semen.
Typically, semen contains millions of sperm cells, but in cases of azoospermia, a professional could spend hours examining a sample under a microscope and still not find a single sperm. However, a new AI-based technology called the ‘STAR method’, developed at Columbia University’s infertility center, changed their lives. This system is specialized in identifying a minimal number of live sperm in a man’s semen sample. The husband only needed to submit his semen sample, which the AI analyzed. Amazingly, the AI detected three sperm that would be impossible to find with the naked eye, and by using these sperm to fertilize an egg, the wife successfully became pregnant. The baby’s due date is this December.
The wife expressed her disbelief, saying, “I still can’t believe it. After encountering so many setbacks, I didn’t have high hopes, but now seeing the baby in the ultrasound feels like a dream.” The technology involves placing the semen sample on a special chip, where AI utilizes a high-speed camera and high-resolution microscope to capture over 8 million images in an hour to locate the sperm.
The ‘STAR (Sperm Tracking and Recovery)’ system recognizes cells presumed to be sperm and separates them while keeping them alive and undamaged. Dr. Zev Williams, who led the development and is the director of Columbia University’s Infertility Center, emphasized, “The ability of AI to find live sperm in semen samples containing just one or two sperm is literally a game changer,” noting that AI located 44 sperm in one hour from samples where even skilled technicians failed after two days.
Previously, azoospermia treatment often involved invasive surgery to extract testicular tissue to find sperm, which could lead to scars and damage even after multiple attempts. Some opt for hormone therapy or sperm donation, often having to give up on using their own sperm for conception. Yet, the STAR technology offers a new alternative, discovering sperm from merely a semen sample without invasive methods.
Azoospermia accounts for about 10% of male infertility cases in the U.S., and since male factors attribute to up to 40% of all infertility causes, the significance of this technology is immense, CNN highlighted. Experts state, “AI allows us to see what we cannot with the naked eye” and noted that AI is being applied in various areas of reproductive medicine, including embryo selection, egg quality evaluation, and personalized IVF drug adjustments.
As with this case, AI is enhancing rather than replacing human expertise, offering new hope to many couples suffering from infertility. Currently, the STAR system is only available at Columbia University’s Infertility Center, but the research team plans to publish the relevant technology in a paper and share it with other institutions.
Dr. Williams mentioned that the cost to find, isolate, and freeze sperm using the STAR system is about $3,000 (approximately 4.09 million won). He expressed, “It is poignant to resolve the age-old problem of infertility with the most modern technology,” hoping that more couples can benefit from this opportunity in the future.
However, there are perspectives that more validation is needed. Dr. Gianpiero Palermo, an infertility treatment expert at Weill Cornell Medicine, raised concerns, stating that “the rush to apply AI in the field of reproductive medicine may give false hope to patients.” As an IVF expert who initially devised the method of directly injecting sperm into the egg, he pointed out that “the STAR system has a flaw because, for some men, their semen sample may inevitably contain no sperm, regardless of human or machine analysis.”
He also emphasized that in cases receiving IVF, the process of retrieving sperm and injecting it into the egg by a human embryologist remains necessary to generate embryos.