Check the quality of sperm with your own hands
The new chip will help men find out the quality of their spermCopper news
Dutch scientists have developed a chip designed to count the concentration of sperm in seminal fluid, ScienceDaily reports (Reliable Home Male Fertility Test?
Accurate Sperm Counts Now Possible). Their development can be used in portable diagnostic devices for self-use at home.
Sperm concentration is one of the most important indicators of male fertility (ability to conceive). The analysis of this indicator is necessarily performed at the first stage of the diagnosis of male infertility. Currently, such analyses are performed only in specialized laboratories, and for satisfactory accuracy of the results they must be repeated from two to five times.
A test system for self-use would save time and money, while increasing the accuracy of diagnostics. In addition, the man would not have to donate sperm in the clinic, which is associated with obvious psychological discomfort.
Researchers from the MESA+ Institute of Nanotechnology at the University of Twente have developed an integrated circuit capable of counting spermatozoa with high accuracy. The principle of its operation is that spermatozoa are passed through a microscopic channel with liquid, above which the electrodes are located. At the moment of passage of the germ cell under these electrodes, the resistance between them changes, which is recorded by the sensor. (The figure shows a possible design of the future "spermometer" developed by Nymus3D.)
Experiments have shown that the chip is able to distinguish spermatozoa from other microscopic bodies, that is, only these cells are taken into account when counting. The research report will be published in one of the upcoming issues of the journal Lab on a Chip.
Currently, developers led by Loes Segerink are exploring the possibility of using the technique to analyze two other key indicators of sperm: the shape and motility of spermatozoa.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru18.02.2010