Diagnosing Male Infertility with Adhesion Test That Captures Sperm Motility

Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman.

The World Health Organization estimates that infertility impacts one in six adults globally. But when it comes to addressing infertility, male partners are often left out of the equation. Some studies suggest that in 18 to 27 percent of cases where a heterosexual couple seeks medical help for fertility issues, doctors won’t bother to run any tests on the man. Those stats might make you think male fertility issues are rare, but that’s definitely not the case. According to some estimates, male fertility issues are the sole cause of infertility in some 20 percent of cases and contribute to the problem in another 30 to 40 percent of cases. In other words, if a couple is having trouble conceiving, there’s about a 50–50 chance that sperm-related issues are a factor.

Perhaps because of the stigma around talking about and testing for male infertility, there hasn’t been much innovation in those diagnostics. That’s starting to change, with at-home testing options popping up to offer privacy and convenience. But today’s guest is pushing the envelope even further: he’s the co-author of a recent study that suggests folks could test some aspects of sperm health right at home—without even sending their samples off to a lab.

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Sushanta Mitra is a professor of mechanical and mechatronics engineering at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

Thank you so much for coming on to chat with us today.

Sushanta Mitra: It’s a pleasure.

Feltman: So let’s start with a pretty basic question: Why is it important to be able to test sperm health, and, and what are the hurdles that are in our way right now?

Mitra: It’s a very good question. So if you look at the very area of male fertility, there’s quite a bit of a social stigma associated with it in terms of, you know, having a way to access a lab, do regular testing, and so forth. So our idea here is to really bring this kind of test [to the] home so that one can do this test at their own leisure and then can really monitor the health of the sperms.

Feltman: Yeah, well, and I know that there are some at-home sperm tests, but what would you say the issues are there that your research was trying to solve?

Mitra: Yeah, so what we are trying to [do] is really empowering individuals with their, you know, at-home test, which is quite—very accurate, it will be at a very low cost, and it is looking at a very different paradigm.

So most of the tests in the lab, lab or … elsewhere [are] all based on understanding the sperm motility through microscopy-based technique. In our case it is a completely different way; it is looking at a very different physical parameter, which is the adhesion measurement of a sperm-laden droplet in contact with a given surface.

Feltman: Hmm, and how did this research get started? You know, you mentioned you’re part of a school of engineering.

Mitra: So my group has been working on understanding adhesion of various droplets on surfaces, so we [developed] a technique of doing this via a cantilever-based technology, which allowed us to do this in a very universal, systematic way, so that if you bring a cantilever in a close contact with the surface, then automatically it will help us to understand: What is the adhesion of that drop with that substrate?

Feltman: Mm.

Mitra: So based on [that] understanding and also [an] understanding of how living matter like bacteria, viruses, and so forth—we worked during the COVID time, as well, understanding how bacteria interacts with surfaces for antibacterial, antiviral coatings.

So all of this knowledge then started building in our group, and then I happened to have an excellent collaborator in the [systems design] engineering professor Veronika Magdanz. So she is [an] expert in terms of sperm motion and so forth, so when she brought this problem to my group, then we thought, “Okay, we developed a tool [for] understanding adhesion of drops on a surface; what happens when we have this drop full of sperm [cells]?”

Feltman: Mm.

Mitra: And I think that very question started this curiosity-driven research that, at the end, helped us to address a very important global health problem.

Feltman: Right, so you’re essentially looking at how well different droplets stick to surfaces, is that correct?

Mitra: Correct, yeah.

Feltman: And what were you able to correlate that with in sperm?

Mitra: So in sperm it is really the motility, so for example, if you think about if the sperm cells are very viable, motile, when you have a drop … in contact with that substrate, it will try to move away from the substrate …

Feltman: Mm.

Mitra: So in other words, highly motile, or healthy, sperm will have less adhesion. So that counterintuitive kind of a signature of adhesion [helps] us to create this kind of a tool for sperm quality.

Feltman: So what would this look like in a home test?

Mitra: A male individual can regularly, you know, collect their semen sample and then put it inside this so-called—what we envision as a black box, which will actually then give gradation, or rate, of “good,” “medium quality,” “high quality,” and so forth.

So the other addressing part here is what we want to ensure—like, there are a lot of challenges, which [have] been documented, in terms of the quality of sperm with respect to the lifestyle choices. For example, if an individual is smoking …

Feltman: Mm.

Mitra: Or if [an] individual has a sedentary life, then the quality of the sperm decreases. So by looking at this kind of testing, an individual can make … proactive lifestyle choices and make themself more active or quit smoking when they plan to have their family and so forth, so I think this can be a very important tool towards, you know, addressing challenges related to [the reproductive], you know, system as well.

Feltman: Yeah, so what are your next steps? You know, what questions do you still have to answer?

Mitra: Well, the next step is to really try to miniaturize the system, right? And make it in our, as I was mentioning, a black box [laughs], so to speak, so that it can be—readily deployed at places, for example, at home and so forth. So I think that kind of a translation part in terms of developing, if you will, a prototype or minimum viable product, which would be a next step …

Feltman: Mm-hmm.

Mitra: Towards commercialization.

Feltman: And how quickly do you think this research could make it into a commercial product?

Mitra: It’s all about money, you know [laughs]? If we get enough resources, funding, then of course, we can accelerate. We have the right people, right tool, right researchers, collaborators to help us move this forward, and of course, we are actively seeking terms of grant funding to make this happen.

I think it is also very critical, you know, to understand the importance of interdisciplinary research. You know, I’m coming from [a] mechanical engineering background with a very different skill set, and my collaborator, professor Veronika Magdanz, is coming from [systems design] engineering with a different sort of skill set. When you have these [kinds] of complementary skill sets coming together and learning from each other—which I think that’s the joy of this kind of interdisciplinary research—one can really create [these kinds] of innovative breakthroughs.

Feltman: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on to chat today, and looking forward to seeing your work progress.

Mitra: Thank you. Thanks for this opportunity.

Feltman: That’s all for today’s episode. We’ll be back on Friday to find out what exactly it takes for human beings to flourish.

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For Scientific American, this is Rachel Feltman. See you next time!