ZyMōt - Microfluidic Sperm Sorting

To select best quality healthy sperm for the artificial insemination process (IVF) significantly affects the chance of a successful pregnancy. During natural fertilization process, healthy sperm are separated from others in microfluidic channels occurring naturally in the woman’s reproductive system.

In IVF treatment, this natural mechanism of the body (sperm selection) is mimicked through microfluidic chips. Microfluidic chips have been developed to completely mimic the natural mechanism of sperm selection in a laboratory setting. These microchannels work as a filter that selects only healthy and high quality sperm.

The chip has an inlet for the sample, which is linked to the outlet opening with a microfluidic duct. The untreated sperm is introduced into the inflow and only motile and morphologically normal sperm are able to swim through the chip to the outflow where it is collected for use. The selected sperms exhibit better morphology, genetic quality and double the viability and motility of unsorted sperms.

This method increases the success of a cycle by up to 25%.