When condensed matter physics meets biology: Does superhydrophobicity benefiting the cryopreservation of human spermatozoa?

From Extremely Water-Repellent Coatings to Passive Icing Protection—Principles, Limitations and Innovative Application Aspects

“…Perhaps the readers of this article are familiar with one famous American romantic comedy entitled "When Harry met Sally", where the main characters meet just before sharing a cross-country drive and then within twelve years have several accidental encounters ending up with marriage. Analogous story, although not love related, is the basis for the execution of the first of its kind experiments revealing cryoconservation of human semen by means of super-nonwetting icephobic carbon soot [157]. In March 2015, the author of this review meet Mr. Todor Chaushev, a microbiologist interested in the invention of new technologies for diagnosis and selection of human gametes and embryos.…”

“…Quite excited, both scientists decide to perform first laboratory trials via a simple homemade setup, illustrated in Figure 7 (further details can be found in ref. [157]). Obviously, finding reliable measures for solving the above-designated problems would be highly beneficial from scientific and industrial perspective, and here is the fundamental intersection among condensed matter physics and biology.…”

“…Quite excited, both scientists decide to perform first laboratory trials via a simple homemade setup, illustrated in Figure 7 (further details can be found in ref. [157]). The freezing and thawing of sperm cells of three patients with distinct seminal characteristics (i.e., normozoospermia, oligozoospermia and asthenozoospermia) is much more successful on the icephobic soot compared to an uncoated glass substrate and about 80% of initial sperm motility is recovered [157].…”

“…[157]). The freezing and thawing of sperm cells of three patients with distinct seminal characteristics (i.e., normozoospermia, oligozoospermia and asthenozoospermia) is much more successful on the icephobic soot compared to an uncoated glass substrate and about 80% of initial sperm motility is recovered [157]. Such an outcome is very unexpected and emotive, because a recent study reports not more than 70% recovered motility achieved through larger quantity of cryoprotectants in the seminal suspension [160].…”

“…Namely, the soot retards the heat transfer rate at the solid-liquid interface [52], ensuring slow water influx within the cells upon thawing, whilst the movement of the freezing front from the three phase contact line towards the liquid's bulk [94] inflicts outward osmosis and uniform dehydration. Definitely, the described mechanisms are prone to critical disputes due to the lack of irrefutable evidences [157], however, the exploration of something newfangled is often accompanied by a degree of uncertainty and contradiction of well-established principles in a given field. Thus, one may accept the preliminary findings as the ground floor of a big and complex building under construction.…”