5.3 million American couples of reproductive age are affected by infertility. Among these cases, male factors account for up to 50%, necessitating the identification of key parameters dictating male fertility, including sperm count, morphology and motility. Assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) have emerged as powerful tools to address male infertility problems in modern clinical practice. In vitro fertilization (IVF) with or without intra cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) has become the most widely used assisted reproductive technology (ART) in modern clinical practice to overcome male infertility challenges. One of the obstacles of IVF and ICSI lies in identifying and isolating the most motile, and healthiest sperm from semen samples that have low sperm counts (oligozoospermia), low sperm motility (oligospermaesthenia).
Selection of the best performing sperm based in the selection criteria including motility is the keystone for successful outcomes of fertilization and full term pregnancy. However, it remains a clinical challenge to select the most motile normal/healthy sperm. The researchers propose to develop a GPU accelerated computational framework that will enable the multi-scale coarsegrained modeling of sperm motility in micro-channels. Towards achieving this goal, they will develop a computationally efficient model of sperm motility and interactions, and design a computer-optimized space-constrained microfluidic sorting (SCMS) system, integrated with a lensless technology, for rapid monitoring, selection and sorting of sperm. As they are utilizing such microchip technology, the proposed device can be easily transformed into a scalable device composed of multiplexed channels. In the long term, this computational platform can be used to design micro-fluidic devices for the selection and sorting of not only spermatozoa, but also other types of biological entities, such as circulating tumors cells (CTCs) or HIV from blood.
The broader impacts of this proposal include educational and scientific outcomes that will open new avenues for physical and biological research and have a considerable impact on fundamental and applied science, education, and medicine. This proposal will facilitate the participation of undergraduates in year round research activities, and directly support the training of graduate students at the interface between physics, engineering and medicine at Harvard, MIT and WPI. The PIs will actively participate in recruitment efforts to broaden the participation of underrepresented groups in the biological, physical sciences, and engineering by attending national meetings and via Harvard's underrepresented minority program. They will continue to advise undergraduates through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) and the mandatory senior theses (MQPs) at WPI. The PIs will also develop graduate courses, and arrange field trips with local high schools in educating students about computational biophysics and microfluidics research. At the national and international level, the PIs will educate the students and the public at other institutions on technological and scientific challenges by giving lectures at NSF supported international summer schools, and by organizing hands-on workshops.
