Smartphones and Semen Analysis

In March 1876, when the telephone pioneer Alexander Graham Bell made his historic call to his assistant, Thomas Watson, it is unlikely that either one of them envisaged other applications for a phone, let alone the medical application of a phone that was published in March 2017 by Shafiee and colleagues in Science Translational Medicine (1) (Figure 1). It is equally unlikely that they would have believed that nearly 150 years later there would be mobile phones or that there would be more mobile phones than people on the planet. Fig. 1. Historical progress of the telephone from Alexander Graham Bell to modern-day smartphone-based semen analysis. Bell on the telephone in New York calling Chicago in 1892 \[Gilbert H. Grosvenor Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons\] (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexander\_Graham\_Telephone\_in\_Newyork.jpg) (Accessed April 2017) (A). Smartphone semen testing (a. optical attachment, b. microfluidic chip) (Image courtesy of Hadi Shafiee) (1) (B). Modern-day hand-held mobile telephony can be traced back to the early 1970s, and the technology has evolved into the current app-laden “smartphone” that combines communication (voice, data, internet) and data storage capabilities with the features of other devices, such as an MP3 player and a digital camera/video camera. Smartphones have created interesting opportunities in wellness medical care and in diagnostic testing. There are now many apps available aimed at …