Technology

Approximately 1 in 6 couples worldwide can expect to suffer from some form of infertility, and the serious psychological and social ramifications that come with it. Fertility rates across the world have been dropping by approximately 1.5% per year with most developed countries now far below the replacement rate of 2.1 births per woman. As a result, Assisted Reproduction Technologies (ART) are becoming a common feature of modern life.

In the UK 37% of IVF is carried out due to male infertility. Despite this, there is no readily available treatment for low-quality sperm, and conventional processing techniques such as Density Gradient Centrifugation (DGC) or "swim-up" offer poor selectivity for crucial sperm quality metrics such as progressive motility or DNA fragmentation.

At CytoSwim we are developing the next generation of sperm treatment tools to help millions of couples. Our patented SpermAlign microstructure technology gently and effectively selects the fastest, highest-performing sperm cells.

Our SpermAlign product relies on a patented biomimetic microstructure that utilizes thigmotaxis to guide the healthiest sperm cells in a sample gently and efficiently to an outlet. Fundamentally, this can be thought of as an obstacle course that sperm cells must navigate before collection.

This technology utilizes "Field-free" separation which allows sperm conditioning to be carried out without the application of harmful thermal or gravitational fields, reducing the risk of DNA fragmentation up to 10X.