IVF Sperm Do Better in a Diamond Dish, University of Ulm Study
COULD IVF success rates be improved simply by changing the materials used to make Petri dishes? It seems that standard polystyrene dishes may undermine the viability of sperm. Researchers have found that sperm cells are more likely to live longer in dishes made of more stable materials. Andrei Sommer at the University of Ulm in Germany and his team tested four Petri dishes. One was a standard lab dish made of hard polystyrene, while the other three were made of a purified glass. Of these, one was untreated, one was sandblasted and coated with a layer of synthetic diamond 1 micrometre thick, while the third was left smooth and coated with the nanodiamond layer. The team extracted sperm from human semen, placed them in a standard IVF medium and added them to the dishes.