A sperm-sorting machine has been developed by Australian scientists to separate healthy sperm from that which is damaged, it was reported Thursday. The shoebox-sized device filters out sperm with a type of DNA damage linked to infertility and a raised risk of childhood cancers, the BBC said. Details were published by New Scientist magazine. The new machine, called Gradiflow, has been developed by Professor John Aitken and Chris Ainsworth of the University of Newcastle in New South Wales and its commercial partner Life Therapeutics of Sydney. It consists of two chambers separated by a filter. After the sperm is injected into the first chamber a voltage is applied across the filter to move sperm to the second chamber. In preliminary tests, using semen from medical students, the 20 percent of sperm that made it into the second chamber had only half as much DNA damage as the sperm left behind. © Copyright 2005 by United Press International

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