Advances in Microfluidics‐Based Assisted Reproductive Technology: From Sperm Sorter to Reproductive System‐on‐a‐Chip

Abstract

The fields of assisted reproductive technology (ART) and in vitro fertilization (IVF) have progressed rapidly, yet still need further improvements. Microfluidic technology can incorporate various ART procedures such as embryo/gamete (sperm/oocyte) analysis, sorting, manipulation, culture, and monitoring. The introduction of paper‐based and droplet‐based microfluidics further improves the commercialization potential of this technology. The progress in 3D printing technology allows for the integration of microfluidics with tissue engineering that may revolutionize current practices in biology and medicine. This review categorizes ART methods according to continuous‐flow microfluidics, paper‐based microfluidics, droplet‐based microfluidics, and organ‐on‐a‐chip. The advances are summarized and potential opportunities in infertility diagnosis, sperm selection, sperm guidance, oocyte selection, insemination, embryo culture, embryo monitoring, and cryopreservation are identified. While some advances of continuous‐flow microfluidics for ART have already been reviewed, other microfluidic techniques are still in their early stages. It is envisioned that advances in droplet‐based microfluidics, especially digital microfluidics, will allow for more progress in human IVF, particularly single embryo transfer. Droplet‐based microfluidics may also lead to fully integrated and high‐throughput platforms for animal IVF. Recent advances in organ‐on‐a‐chip including ovary/uterus/oviduct‐on‐chip platforms hold promise for the integration of the whole human reproductive system‐on‐a‐chip for clinical applications.

Spheroids-on-a-chip: Recent advances and design considerations in microfluidic platforms for spheroid formation and culture

“…Digital microfluidics is a state-of-the-art technique used to handle picoliter to microliter liquid droplets [166,167] using different mechanisms such as the Marangoni effect [168], magnetic fields [169,170], optical actuation [171] or electrostatic forces [172][173][174]. Recently, much attention has been given to the application of this format of microfluidics in various biomedical applications including assisted reproductive technology and in vitro fertilization [175]. It has been shown that the electrostatic fields used in digital microfluidic chips have negligible effects on cell viability, morphology [174,176] and gene expression [172], making such platforms suitable for both 2D [174,176,177] and 3D [172,173,178] cell culture.…”

Inventions and Innovations in Preclinical Platforms for Cancer Research

“…As a science and technology, microfluidics can be used for various fluid mechanics applications, including slip flow in superhydrophobic microchannels [69,70] and drag reduction [71][72][73]. In parallel, microfluidic systems hold great promise for cell biology [74], assisted reproductive technology (ART) [75], drug delivery systems [76], anti-cancer drug screening [77] and disease modelling [78]. Recently, microfluidic platforms for spheroid formation and culture have been thoroughly reviewed by our group [13].…”

A New Form of Velocity Distribution in Rectangular Microchannels with Finite Aspect Ratios

“…Microchannels are basic components in drug delivery devices [1,2], micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS) [3], and lab-on-a-chip systems [4], microfluidic assisted reproductive technology (ART) [5] and other microfluidic components [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Large surface-to-volume ratio (SVR) [21][22][23] of microchannels makes them an excellent choice for compact and efficient heat exchangers in electronic cooling devices [24,25].…”