Columbia University’s Fertility Center has announced a groundbreaking medical breakthrough: using artificial intelligence (AI) to achieve a successful pregnancy in a woman whose husband suffered from azoospermia—an absence of sperm in his ejaculate—ending a nearly 19-year struggle with infertility.

The husband’s condition had rendered natural conception impossible and had thwarted multiple in vitro fertilization (IVF) attempts. But the team, led by Dr. Zev Williams, developed an advanced AI-powered microfluidic system named STAR (Sperm Track And Recovery). Over five years of research went into creating the technology capable of scanning up to eight million microscopic images per hour to locate rare, viable sperm cells that even skilled embryologists could not detect.

In March 2025, the first successful pregnancy using this system was confirmed. The couple—Rosie* and her husband—had endured 15 unsuccessful IVF cycles over nearly two decades. The intact sperm recovered by STAR were used to fertilize her eggs, resulting in a healthy embryo and ongoing pregnancy monitored under normal obstetric care.

Experts view this milestone as a revolution in reproductive medicine. By harnessing AI’s precision to recover rare sperm without invasive chemicals, STAR offers new hope for couples facing similar challenges. Columbia researchers anticipate that this technology could transform treatments for various male-factor infertility issues and significantly raise IVF success rates in the near future.