Projektbeschreibung
Mikrobots helfen bei der Befruchtung
Das Projekt MicroRepro entwickelt eine hochmoderne Technologie, die medizinische Mikrobots verwendet, um Spermien zur Befruchtung einer Eizelle vorwärtszutreiben. Fast 50 Millionen Paare weltweit sind von Unfruchtbarkeit betroffen, daher sind fortgeschrittene Alternativen zur künstlichen Befruchtung, die nur in weniger als 30 % der Fälle erfolgreich ist, und zur In-Vitro-Fertilisation, die zwar erfolgversprechender, aber auch invasiver ist, dringend erforderlich. Das Projekt MicroRepro bietet eine Methode an, die eher dem natürlichen Vorgang entspricht, macht sich Fortschritte in der Nanotechnologie und Mikrorobotik zunutze und entwickelt diese weiter. Zum Team gehört auch ein Forschungsleiter, der ein ähnliches Gerät erfunden hat (Spermbot). Dank vielversprechender Erfolgsaussichten ist zu erwarten, dass auf diese Weise zur Lösung eines kritischen medizinischen Problems beigetragen wird, während gleichzeitig die Forschung in den Bereichen biologische Bildgebung, Nanowissenschaften und Biologie vorangetrieben wird.
Ziel
Infertility is a health issue with sociological and psychological implications that affects approximately 50 million couples worldwide and therefore receives global attention. Among fertility issues, male infertility is diagnosed in about 40% of all cases and the major causes are poor motility of spermatozoa (asthenospermia), low sperm count (oligospermia), abnormal sperm morphology (teratospermia) and/or combinations of these, leading to their inability to fertilize an oocyte. Such problems have been mainly addressed by artificial insemination (AI) and in vitro fertilization (IVF). AI involves introducing sperms into a woman’s uterus with a medical instrument, but its applicability is limited and its success rate is below 30%. In contrast, IVF and intracytoplasmic sperm injection can be more effective but implicate more invasive procedures such as removing oocytes from a woman’s ovaries, fertilize them outside of the body and then transfer the embryos back to the uterus a few days later. These difficulties demand rethinking of assisted fertilization and the sought after novel approaches that offer more natural procedures with high success rate. Hence, we propose untethered medical microbots to assist sperm cells to fertilize an oocyte in living organisms (mice model). The MicroRepro project will bring advances in areas such as bioimaging, nanomaterials science and fundamental biology, boosting the whole field of medical microbots in the process, as was recently highlighted by the PI in an extended comment [Nature 545, 406(2017)]. The PI has decisively contributed to the field of microrobotics and invented the sperm-robot (Spermbot) concept together with his team in two previous patent applications and several publications. The mere concept has attracted worldwide attention. However, even in vitro fertilization has never been achieved – therefore, targeting the challenges leading to the first spermbot fertilization will be the main objective of this project.
Wissenschaftliches Gebiet
Schlüsselbegriffe
Programm/Programme
Thema/Themen
Finanzierungsplan
ERC-ADG - Advanced GrantGastgebende Einrichtung
09111 Chemnitz
Deutschland