Smartphones have great potential to analyze semen because they are portable, contain excellent digital cameras, and can be easily attached to a microscope. A single-ball lens microscope is inexpensive and easy to use for acquiring digital microscopic movies. Given its small size and weight, the device can support testing for male fertility at home or in the field, making it much more convenient and economical than current practice. This single-ball lens microscope provides an easy solution for global users to rapidly screen for male infertility.

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INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: Semen analysis is the key element in the diagnosing the reproductive potential of a male subject. In current practice men must use a clinic or other hospital facility to have their semen analyzed. However, many subjects are not comfortable with this procedure, which they often find embarrassing and expensive. Interestingly enough, a Dutch scientist, Anton van Leeuwenhoek, first discovered the spermatozoa in 1677 using a single-ball lens microscope that had invented. Here we report on a novel semen analysis device consisting of single-ball lens microscope paired with a state-of-the-art smart phone equipped with a camera of the kind found in nearly all commercial smart phones. METHODS: We developed a microscope constructed with single-ball lens of 0.8 mm in diameter inserted into a plastic jacket that attaches to commercial smart phone. For our experiments, we specifically designed and built a jacket for a smartphone (LG Optimus Exceed2, Android 4.2.2) equipped with a 500 megapixels camera and 800Â480 of video resolution. The magnification provided by this singleball lens was 550 times. We used this lens with the smartphone camera to pictures and video clips of semen samples. In our typical experimental setup, we placed a semen sample with a volume of approximately 20 ml on a 50 mm cellophane sheet. The distance between the single-ball lens and the smartphone camera was 1.5 mm. Motile and static sperm were counted on the enlarged PC screen connected to the smartphone. We analyzed a total of 45 human semen samples both with our device and CASA software (SCA HUMAN edition ver. 5.2). RESULTS: Sperm concentration counted with single-ball lens showed a very strong correlation with the CASA results (P<0.01, r¼0.89). In addition, Sperm motility analyzed with our device showed significant correlations to CASA (P<0.01, r¼0.74). CONCLUSIONS: Smartphones have great potential to support semen analysis because they are portable, contain excellent digital cameras and can be easily attached to a microscope. Single-ball lens microscope is inexpensive and easy to use for acquiring digital microscopic movies. Given its small size and weight, the device can support testing for male fertility at home, making it much more convenient and economical than current practice. We are currently working on device extensions in order to make it easy to focus on a semen sample, to obtain good quality images, to quantify semen status automatically and to reconstruct 3D image for morphology analysis. This single-ball lens microscope provides an easy solution for global users to screen male infertility at home.

Diseases of the posterior segment of the eye are common causes of blindness and can be difficult to treat due to their location. Recently, there has been increased interest in the use of the suprachoroidal space to deliver therapeutics to the posterior segment. This space is accessible through a trans-scleral approach and blunt dissection of the adjacent scleral and choroidal tissues. However, despite recent commercial interest, there are few tools designed specifically to provide targeted delivery of therapeutics to a localised region within the suprachoroidal space. Therefore, we designed and prototyped a novel navigational catheter system for the targeted delivery of payloads within the suprachoroidal space. The system consists of a customised catheter tip designed to minimise blunt dissection stresses on neighbouring tissues, a mechanism for controlled catheter navigation, and a method for targeted delivery of large payloads. A customised in vitro model of the eye was also designed to visually demonstrate the capability of the catheter system to controllably navigate within the suprachoroidal space and deliver a targeted payload. This system can enable the delivery of large therapeutic payloads to the eye for the treatment of posterior eye diseases, thereby impacting the development and availability of vision-saving treatments.