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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 -27 % 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 % of cases, and contribute to the problem in another 30 -40 % 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.
Shashanta Mitra is a professor of mechanical and mechatronics engineering at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
Thank you so much for coming out to chat with us today.
It's a pleasure. So let's start with a pretty basic question.
Why is it important to be able to test sperm health and what are the hurdles that are in our way right now?
It's a very good question.
So if you look at the very area of male fertility, there is quite a bit of a social stigma associated with it in terms of, you know, having a way to access lab, do regular testing and so forth.
So our idea here is to really bring these kind of tests at home so that one can do this test at their own leisure and then can really monitor the health of the spence.
Well, 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.
Yeah, so what we are trying to is really empowering individuals with their at -home tests, 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 or elsewhere is 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 sperm, lead, and droplet in contact with a given surface.
And how did this research get started?
You know, you mentioned you're part of a school of engineering.
So my group has been working on understanding adhesion of various droplets on surfaces, So we develop a technique of doing this via 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.
So based on those understandings and also 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 and viral coatings.
So all of this knowledge then started building in our group and then I happened to have an excellent collaborator in the system designs engineering professor Veronica Mcdennis, so she is expert in terms of sperm motion and so forth, so when she brought this problem to my group then we said okay we developed a tool of understanding adhesion of drops on the surface is what happens when we have this dropful of sperm cells.
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.
Right, so you're essentially looking at how well different droplets stick to surfaces, is that correct?
Correct, yeah. And what were you able to correlate that with in sperm?
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 and in contact with that substrate, it will try to move away from the substrate.
So, in other words, highly motile or healthy sperm will have less adhesion.
So that counterintuitive kind of a signature of adhesion help us to create this kind of a tool for sperm quality.
So what would this look like in a home test?
A male individual can regularly collect this 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 has been documented in terms of the quality of sperm with respect to the lifestyle choices.
For example, if an individual is smoking 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 a proactive lifestyle choice and make themselves 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 reproduction, you know, systems as well.
So what are your next steps?
You know, what questions do you still have to answer?
Well, the next step is to really try to miniaturize the system, right, and make it in our, as they 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 a minimum viable product, which would be a next step towards commercialization.
And how quickly do you think this research could make it into a commercial product?
It's all about money, you know.
If you get enough resources, funding then of course we can accelerate.
we have the right people, right tools, right researchers, collaborators to help us move this forward and of course we are actively seeking in terms of grant funding to make this happen.
I think it is also very critical to understand the importance of interdisciplinary research. I am coming from a mechanical engineering background with very different skill sets And my collaborator, Professor Veronica McDennis, is coming from system designs engineering with different sets of skill set.
When you have these kind of complementary skillsets coming together and learning from each other with, I think, that's the joy of this kind of interdisciplinary research, one can really create these kind of innovative breakthroughs.
Yeah. Well thank you so much for coming on to chat today and looking forward to seeing your work progress.
Thank you. Thanks for this opportunity.
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We'll be back on Friday to find out what exactly it takes for human beings to flourish.
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I'd Produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Wongi, Kelso Harper, Naimeh Marcy and Jeff DelVicchio.
This episode was edited by Alex Zaghiara.
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