Attachment to the tablet for assessing the quality of sperm

Vyacheslav Golovanov, Geektimes

A startup from Taiwan, Aidmics, has developed a portable device with a microscope and backlight, paired with an iPad mini, which is used to assess the quality of livestock sperm. Inspired by the successful sales of the product, the developers plan to submit an application to the US Food and Drug Administration next year. They want to get permission to sell a similar device for analyzing men's sperm.

What modern pocket computers are not able to calculate. And special additional lenses make it possible to take pictures of both remote objects and microscopic ones. A fairly simple device from Aidmics under the name ISREGM consists of a flask in which a sample of the test material is placed, a backlight and a magnifying lens.

Within 7 seconds, a special application for iPad mini takes a video on which the camera captures the movements of sperm, and then within 10 seconds automatically calculates such parameters affecting fertility as their number and mobility. Simplicity and high speed of analysis distinguish the device from other kits sold for home use.

During the year of operation, the startup managed to sell two hundred sets for farms. Farmers are satisfied and note the increase in the birth rate of cattle – because previously they could assess the quality of producers only with the help of conventional microscopes without any automation.

The founders of the startup turned to an investment analyst from the United States, who estimated the market for similar devices modified to work with human sperm in North America at $ 40 billion.

The inventors plan that the final cost of the device for consumers will be from $ 100 to $ 200. Such a device may be more expensive than a single spermogram compilation service (for example, in Moscow its cost starts from 1000 rubles – although, perhaps, in the USA this service is much more expensive), and may not be in great demand in the end-user market. But small clinics around the world will be able to adopt it – after all, medical equipment for automated spermograms costs from $ 10,000, and an alternative method is to count spermatozoa under a microscope manually.