What will the embryology and andrology laboratory look like in 2030?
Experts and pioneers of Medically Assisted Reproduction have tried to answer this important question, talking about how they imagine the ‘heart’ of fertility centers will be 10 years from now. Several teams explained their vision on concepts related, for example, to process automation and what the role of technicians will be in the future.
The GeneraLife experts who signed the work (Laura Rienzi, Danilo Cimadomo, Filippo Maria Ubaldi, Federica Innocenti) expressed a fundamental concept and that is that automation is not a remote perspective: day after day, month after month, the number increases of publications in this field.
It will be important more than anything else – they point out – to facilitate communication and comparison between the professionals who develop the technologies and the IVF experts.
In GeneraLife’s vision, the main advantages of automation are: increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of laboratory practices and ensuring standardization, therefore the reproducibility of processes within the laboratories.
The question that the team asks is: will automation take jobs away from men, in this case embryologists? “History suggests that it will not – write the experts – as indeed, since 1900, technological improvements have never caused unemployment.
Machines, robots and software cannot replace experienced operators, but they are able to increase their efficiency, while providing the opportunity to improve their knowledge, do research.
The philosopher Cosimo Accoto in his book ‘ The world ex machina’ states:
“the future will be automatic or it will not be at all. Our biggest challenge is to create an environment in which automation reflects and supports human needs and values”.
