Application of microfluidic technologies to the quantification and manipulation of sperm

Abstract

With respect to male fertility, sperm play a crucial role in the whole process of fertilization. Many technologies for manipulating sperm have been developed over the past few decades and these have focused on counting and sorting sperm. Microfludic technologies were introduced into this field at the beginning of the 21st century. This paper reviews the history of microfluidic technologies and their application to forensic medicine and sperm counting and sorting. An attempt is made to establish an automatic platform for in vitro fertilization using microfluidic technologies.

Keywords

• forensic medicine
• in vitro fertilization
• microfluidic technologies
• sperm counting
• sperm sorting