Ovulation is only half the story. The real question is whether the cervical environment is actually sperm-friendly at the right moment. Let's turn this overlooked biofluid into a smart diagnostic signal – enabling more informative fertility and women’s-health tests for clinics, wearables and at-home use.
Background
Today’s fertility and women’s-health diagnostics are mostly episodic and single-signal: LH/hormone tests, vaginal pH strips, basal body temperature or impedance-based devices. These tools can be useful, but they do not capture the full cervical-mucus environment that direct-ly influences sperm motility, survival and passage.
Cervical mucus changes strongly across the menstrual cycle under estrogen/progesterone control. During the fertile window, hydration, pH, electrolytes, viscosity, mucins, glucose and immune status help create a sperm-permissive environment. Deviations can indicate im-paired functional fertility, infection/dysbiosis or hormonal dysregulation.
Technology
We combine clinical cervical-mucus sample analysis, multimodal bi-omarker profiling, electrochemical/potentiometric sensing and AI-driven feature selection. The aim is to identify the smallest, most informative marker set for functional fertility and translate it into a practical sensor format.
Candidate readouts include viscosity/rheology, pH, glucose, electro-lytes, mucins such as MUC5B, hormone-linked markers, im-mune/antimicrobial markers such as lactoferrin, β-defensin, IL-6/IL-8, and sperm-linked indicators such as LDH-C4. Measurements can use ELISA, chemiluminescence, fluorescent probes, ion-selective elec-trodes, rheometry and potentiometric sensors.
acib offers:
- Clinically annotated sample and biomarker strategy
- Multimodal feature measurement and correlation analysis
- Potentiometric/electrochemical sensor development
- AI-based feature reduction for minimal marker panels
- Prototype concepts for at-home, wearable, external-sampling or clinic-linked diagnostics
- Validation planning and commercialization-oriented develop-ment roadmap
Offer
We are looking for diagnostic, medtech and at-home-testing compa-nies to co-develop next-generation cervical-mucus diagnostics. IP generated can be fully transferred to company partners.
Experts:
Dr. Julia Feichtinger, Dr. Julia Fuchs, Dr. Martina Kollmann, Dr. Gerit Moser, Dr. Mathias Polz, Dr. Theresa RienmüllerDevelopment status:
Status of the project proposal – Technology Readiness Level 2 (technology concept formulat-ed)Keywords:
Functional fertility, Cervical mucus diagnostics, At-home fertility testing, Women’s health, Potentiometric sensing, Electrochemical diagnostics, AI-driven feature selection, Fertile window monitoring, Sperm–mucus interaction, Wearable biosensing, Reproductive health monitoring
Picture: acib
