Project 02 · 2022–2023 · Completed

EVA meets
the clinic.

Rennes-Saint-Malo Experimentation (RSM) was EVA's first test outside the lab bench: a head-to-head benchmark against density-gradient centrifugation, run inside an active reproductive-biology laboratory.

Project insight

Twelve months, three phases, one question.

Could a device relying only on the sperm's own swimming behaviour match, or beat, the clinical standard? RSM set out to answer that with a real partner laboratory rather than in-house testing alone.

A working prototype

The first minimum viable EVA paired a heating unit with a disposable chip, driving rheotaxis and thermotaxis together for the first time outside the lab.

A real clinical partner

Run with SELAS Laboratoire Biologies de Réunis in Rennes, alongside Dr. Griveau, running density-gradient centrifugation on the same samples for direct comparison.

Three escalating phases

Testing progressed from normal samples to challenging low-concentration (oligospermia) cases, over a planned series of human semen samples.

Innovation

What twelve months in a real lab showed.

Inside the chip, a temperature gradient and a controlled flow let motile sperm migrate from an insertion point to a collection point under their own power, with no centrifugation step at all. Across the study, EVA selectively recovered a subpopulation of exceptionally high quality: near-complete motility and DNA integrity, cleanly suited to procedures such as ICSI. The conventional method, by contrast, carried through a substantial fraction of lower-quality cells alongside the good ones.

  • The first head-to-head evidence that EVA's self-selection matches biological relevance in a real clinical setting, not just on the bench.
  • Hands-on feedback from the clinical team surfaced two real-world limits: the recovered sample volume, and a lengthy, pipetting-heavy protocol.
  • Those two limits directly set the agenda for the next project, Inno R&D, which targeted throughput without giving up the quality RSM had proven.
iProject info
Period
2022–2023
Programme
La French Tech Rennes Saint-Malo
Partner
SELAS Laboratoire Biologies de Réunis (Rennes)
Keywords
Rheotaxis, thermotaxis, density-gradient centrifugation, ICSI
RheotaxisThermotaxis
ACAlexandre CassarEx-R&D Engineer Dr. Shiva Kant ShuklaDr. Shiva Kant ShuklaPrincipal Investigator
Dissemination

Funded by La French Tech Rennes Saint-Malo.

Run in partnership with SELAS Laboratoire Biologies de Réunis, a reproductive-biology laboratory in Rennes, whose clinical team ran the comparison arm and whose feedback shaped the project that followed.

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