Overture Life is a start-up from Barcelona that seeks to revolutionize the field of in vitro fertilization (IVF) through automation and robotics. Founded in 2018, the company has developed an automated system called ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection), which has the potential to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and accessibility of fertility treatments. In this article, we will explore Overture Life’s impact on IVF and how its innovative approach is changing the way assisted reproductive challenges are addressed.
The problem with traditional IVF
IVF is a fertility treatment in which eggs and sperm are combined in a laboratory to create embryos that are then transferred to the uterus. Although IVF has helped many people conceive, the process has some limitations. First, IVF is expensive and requires a great deal of time and human resources. Additionally, the IVF success rate remains relatively low, with only about 30% of treatment cycles resulting in a live birth.
The Overture Life Solution: Automation and Robotics
Overture Life seeks to address these challenges through automation and robotics. The company has developed the EmbryoScope+ system, which is an embryo incubator with real-time image analysis and monitoring technology. This allows fertility specialists to track embryo development more efficiently and accurately, which can increase treatment success rates.
In addition, Overture Life has created an automated system to perform intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), a procedure in which a sperm is injected directly into an egg to facilitate fertilization. ICSI is especially useful in cases of male infertility, where the quantity or quality of sperm is insufficient to achieve fertilization using conventional IVF techniques.
Benefits of automation and robotics in IVF
The use of automation and robotics in IVF offers several benefits. First, the accuracy and efficiency of the process are significantly improved, which can increase treatment success rates. Additionally, automation can reduce the workload of fertility specialists, allowing them to focus on other aspects of treatment and provide more personalized care to their patients.
Automation also has the potential to reduce IVF costs, which can make the treatment more accessible to a greater number of people. The use of robots for sperm injection can reduce the cost of an IVF cycle by 50%, which is a significant advance in terms of affordability.
Recent advances and successes in automated IVF
In April 2023, it was announced that the first babies conceived using sperm injection technology developed by Overture Life had been born in the United States. These births mark an important milestone in the application of automation and robotics in the field of assisted reproduction, and demonstrate the potential of this technology to improve IVF success rates.
As you can read in this article from MIT, last spring, a team of engineers in Barcelona packed up the sperm injector robot they had designed and shipped it via DHL to New York City. They traveled to the city to take the robot to a clinic called New Hope, where they reassembled the instrument, fitting a microscope, a mechanized needle, a small petri dish and a laptop.
One of the engineers, with no prior reproductive medicine experience, used a Sony PlayStation 5 controller to position the robotic needle. With the help of a camera, the needle moved forward on its own, penetrating the egg and depositing a single sperm cell. In all, the robot was used to fertilize more than a dozen eggs.
The researchers reported that the results of the procedures were healthy embryos, and now two girls, who are considered the first people born after fertilization by a “robot.”
The startup company that developed the robot, Overture Life, says its device is a first step toward automating in vitro fertilization (IVF) and potentially making the procedure less expensive and far more common than it is today. in day.
Purely illustrative image, generated by AI
