The science behind us
Every fertility brand says its laboratory is good. Here is the specific, checkable version: Cell Mate’s laboratory was built by Rajnish Sehgal, who has spent over thirty years in andrology and cryopreservation, and who has been teaching the technique to clinicians since 2001.
Rajnish Sehgal
Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Cell Mate
Andrology and cryopreservation. Trained at Bourn Hall Clinic in the United Kingdom, the clinic where IVF began.
Most people in fertility work across the whole field. Rajnish has spent his entire career on one part of it: what happens to a sample in the laboratory. Assessing it, preparing it, freezing it, and keeping it viable for as long as it needs to be kept.
He trained at Bourn Hall Clinic in the United Kingdom, the clinic founded by the team behind the first IVF birth. He went on to build one of India’s largest sample banks, and the team he leads has frozen more than 850,000 samples. He developed the freezing media used in Cell Mate’s own laboratory.
None of that is unusual to say. What is harder to arrange is the next part.
Sessions at conferences, medical colleges, hospital departments and CMEs across India. And the thank-yous that followed.
Demonstrating in-depth semen analysis, FOGSI Fertility Regulation Conclave, Jaipur
Sperm preparation explained at the FOGSI conclave
At the FOGSI Fertility Regulation Conclave 2026, Jaipur
Talking through a sample at the FOGSI station, Jaipur
Holding the tube, everyone watching the hands
Semen analysis and interpretation, projected
Felicitated after a hands-on session
Gloved, round the microscope at a hospital bench
At the bench with the group
Felicitated by the organising committee
A dozen clinicians pressed round the bench
Round the bench, everyone looking
Received at a hospital session
Morphology projected, pointing out the defect
Working through a preparation
Felicitated at a conference workshop
Counting chamber on screen, mid-explanation
Demonstrating at the bench
Certificate handover after training
Teaching a full table, microscope between them
A full room at the microscope
Felicitated at a CME
A session in progress
Live demonstration for the room
After a session, with the group
At a medical college, chamber projected
The cohort, after the session
Felicitated at the UCMS and GTB Hospital workshop
Demonstrating to residents, UCMS and GTB Hospital
Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Excellence AwardDemonstrating in-depth semen analysis, FOGSI Fertility Regulation Conclave, JaipurSperm preparation explained at the FOGSI conclaveAt the FOGSI Fertility Regulation Conclave 2026, JaipurTalking through a sample at the FOGSI station, JaipurHolding the tube, everyone watching the handsSemen analysis and interpretation, projectedFelicitated after a hands-on sessionGloved, round the microscope at a hospital benchAt the bench with the groupFelicitated by the organising committeeA dozen clinicians pressed round the benchRound the bench, everyone lookingReceived at a hospital sessionMorphology projected, pointing out the defectWorking through a preparationFelicitated at a conference workshopCounting chamber on screen, mid-explanationDemonstrating at the benchCertificate handover after trainingTeaching a full table, microscope between themA full room at the microscopeFelicitated at a CMEA session in progressLive demonstration for the roomAfter a session, with the groupAt a medical college, chamber projectedThe cohort, after the sessionFelicitated at the UCMS and GTB Hospital workshopDemonstrating to residents, UCMS and GTB HospitalDr APJ Abdul Kalam Excellence AwardConferred by the Delhi Gynaecologist Forum, for contribution to andrology and cryopreservation. It is a professional body of practising gynaecologists recognising the laboratory side of the work, which is the part that usually goes unnamed.
The award ceremony. More about the award.
Since 2001 he has taught andrology laboratory practice to gynaecologists, embryologists and residents at conferences, medical colleges and hospital departments across India. Roughly forty-five of those sessions are documented. There have been a great many more.
Medical colleges in Gorakhpur, Meerut, Lucknow, Kota, Trichy, Jammu and Srinagar have all had him at the bench at some point. The list keeps growing, mostly because the same societies keep asking again.
Technique is the part of a laboratory that varies. Equipment can be bought. Reading a sample correctly, every single time, cannot.
In April 2012, a Hindi film had suddenly made sperm donation dinner-table conversation across India, and Deccan Herald went looking for people who actually worked in the field. They found three: the heads of IVF units at two large hospital groups, and Rajnish.
He made the point he still makes: that male factor is involved in about half of all infertility cases (WHO), and that the public conversation had barely caught up with it. On the stigma around donation, his line was that it is “as easy as blood donation”.
Read the piece on Deccan Herald →He was already the person a national daily called when it needed someone who knew the laboratory side. That was fourteen years ago, and several years before Cell Mate existed.
More recently, Fertility News, a US reproductive-medicine title, carried his account of a day spent teaching gynaecologists how to read a semen report properly, and why sperm DNA fragmentation is still so rarely ordered in India.
Alongside the free teaching, which carries on regardless, he runs The Andrology School, a two-day hands-on laboratory course for clinicians in Delhi. The full teaching record, session by session, is listed there: see all of it →. It is there for doctors rather than for customers, but it is worth knowing it exists: the technique used on your sample is the technique he is asked to teach.
How a sample is assessed, what gets stored, how long it lasts, what your report actually says. No commitment at any stage.
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