AI's Fertility Breakthrough Arrives
Rowan Cheung

AI's Fertility Breakthrough Arrives

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5 highlights

Columbia University doctors achieved the first pregnancy using an AI system called STAR, which helped a couple conceive after an 18-year struggle by discovering viable sperm in a man with severe infertility.

• STAR uses AI to scan semen samples from men with azoospermia, a condition with nearly zero measurable sperm, instead of the typical 200-300M cells.

• The system scanned 8M microscopic images in under an hour, locating 44 cells, whereas human technicians found zero after two days of searching.

STAR is only used at the Columbia University Fertility Center for now, with an estimated $3K cost compared to as high as $15-30K for a single IVF cycle.

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