Several researchers at Waterloo Engineering were key contributors to an international collaboration to turn sperm cells into magnetically controlled microrobots.
The sperm bots, as they have been dubbed, can be tracked using X-ray imaging, paving the way for potential uses in reproductive medicine, drug delivery and infertility diagnostics.
“Until now, visualizing sperm inside the body was nearly impossible,” said Dr. Islam Khalil, a researcher at the University of Twente in the Netherlands who led the study.
Waterloo professors Dr. Veronika Magdanz and Dr. Maud Gorbet of systems design engineering and Dr. Hamed Shahsavan of chemical engineering were co-authors of a paper on the project recently published in npj Robotics.
The research team coated real sperm cells with magnetic nanoparticles to make them visible to X-rays and responsive to magnetic fields, enabling them to be tracked and steered inside a life-sized anatomical model.
Naturally fast swimmers
By loading sperm bots with medication, doctors could potentially treat conditions such as uterine cancer by precisely delivering drugs to hard-to-reach places inside the body.
The microscopic robots could also aid infertility research and be used to improve in vitro fertilization (IVF) techniques.
Sperm cells are naturally fast, flexible swimmers capable of navigating the complex female reproductive tract, making them well-suited for use in medical microrobotics.
Waterloo doctoral students Sadaf Mohsenkani, Negin Bouzari and Motahareh Shabani Dargah also contributed to the study, along with undergraduate students Yusra Pervez and Mathilda LaBrash-White.