A novel device to micromanipulate oocytes during intracytoplasmic sperm injection

Objectives: To demonstrate a novel, non-pneumatic, compliant mechanism-based micro gripper to immobilize oocytes for the Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). Material and Methods: The micro gripper is designed intuitively based on different techniques available to design compliant mechanisms in the literature such as the Stiffness Maps technique, Kinetoelastostatic maps, and feasibility maps techniques. The gripper’s holder was made from a 2mm thick PMMA sheet; whereas, the gripper was fabricated using a hydrophilic sheet, a proprietary material of 3MTM. The gripper and holder were assembled using a biocompatible adhesive. Results: Experimental trials carried out with the gripper holder on the ICSI workbench showed that the developed gripper holder was able to hold the oocyte gently and firmly in place. A micro linear actuator was used to actuate the gripper-holder. The device was tested for its efficacy to perform ICSI by designing ICSI experiments with matured oocytes and sperm; it was found that the degeneration rate was absolutely zero percent for all the matured oocytes. Conclusions: A novel device to micro manipulate oocytes during intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection is presented in this paper and is based on the gripping principle as opposed to the conventional suction-based pipettes for holding the oocytes gently and firmly in place during ICSI. The degeneration rate was found to be zero using the gripper-based novel device.