The Great Sperm Race

‘The Great Sperm Race’ documentary charted the journey of conception as it had never been seen before. Part funded by the Wellcome Trust, the programme was broadcast on Monday 23 March 2009 on Channel 4.

Running time: 2 min

Scaled up to human size, with the sperm cells being played by real people, ‘The Great Sperm Race’ tells the story of human conception using computer graphics, dramatic reconstruction and the expertise and imagination of top scientists.

In the programme, the microscopic world of sperm and egg was accurately scaled up by 34 000 times so that viewers could appreciate the challenges and obstacles that sperm have to overcome to fertilise an egg.

The human-sized heroes negotiate some of the world's most striking landscapes: high in the Canadian Rockies, the epic proportions of the vagina relative to the sperm become startlingly clear, while buildings on London's South Bank symbolise the intricacies of the cervix.

"The battle that sperm have in order to find and fertilise an egg is just immense," explains Dr Allan Pacey of Sheffield University and a contributor to the film. "Everything is working against sperm and they're not really given a helping hand by the female reproductive tract."

The Wellcome Trust's involvement meant that the scientific content of the programme was in line with the most up-to-date research, with some of the world's leading reproductive scientists contributing to the programme.

A summary of the science on which the programme is based was peer reviewed before production began. That document is available from the Channel 4 website, along with more information about the programme and even a game where visitors can see how they would fare as a sperm.

Broadcast Development Award: 'The Great Sperm Race', 2007
Large Broadcast Award: 'The Great Sperm Race', 2008
People Award: 'The Great Sperm Race game', 2009