Microfluidic Cell Sorting and Analysis for Assisted Reproduction

Infertility affects one in six individuals globally, with male infertility contributing to approximately 45% of these cases. Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) have been used to combat infertility, but their success rate has plateaued at around 33% per cycle due to lack of technological developments over the past 30 years. A deeper understanding of sperm swimming behaviour in environments mimicking the female reproductive tract could improve ART outcomes. This thesis applies microfluidics to study sperm behaviour in such environments and to develop a scalable clinical technology for high-quality sperm selection.