Microfluidics for in vitro fertilization: from science to clinical validation

This narrative review analyses the development of microfluidic technologies specifically applied to the IVF treatment, and their translation into clinical solution.

Starting with an analysis of the latest scientific publications, the patent scenario and the current clinical trials were analysed aiming to identify the most developed applications, the challenges, and barriers for regulatory approval and clinical validation in different countries.

Searches were completed in English, by using a combination of these keywords (exceptions are included in the text in the different sections): Microfluidic, IVF, Assisted, clinical, fertility, human fertility, women fertility, reproduction, pregnancy, Assisted Reproductive Technology. These were used for previously published reviews and scientific journal papers using PubMed (National Center for Biotechnology Information at the U.S. National Library of Medicine), and Google Scholar, limited to the last decade (2013-2025); for completed or ongoing clinical trials using Clinicaltrials.gov; for existing patents and intellectual properties commercialization using lens.org, and crosschecked on espacenet.com from 2000 to 2025.

It is approximately 20 years since the design of the first microfluidic systems for IVF. In the last 5 years, there have been over 130 publications proposing new microfluidic solutions, with pre-clinical validation data in animal models and humans. Our analysis highlighted three main areas of development that are discussed in terms of trends and advancements in oocyte and sperm processing and handling; proposed solutions to support in vitro embryo development; and microfluidic-based approaches and techniques for cryopreservation and female fertility preservation. In the last 20 years, progression of the microfluidic technology and improvement of manufacturing processes have led to an exponential rise of patents (1405) where microfluidics is applied to different steps of the assisted conception cycle. However, of these innovative techniques, only a limited number have progressed to clinical validation (19 trials commenced since 2009) and these have focused primarily on microfluidic sperm sorting and selection with multiple trials investigating its effectiveness in enhancing sperm quality and fertilization rates, and microfluidic embryo culture systems, where additional research is still needed to establish benefits over traditional culture environments. The key barriers to adoption include the need for long-term clinical outcome data, standardization of results across various patient populations, and regulatory challenges. We summarize the pathways needed to ensure compliance with quality standards and regulations in different countries. This analysis evaluates the different clinical trial requirements and challenges for participant recruitment, as well as study design complexity, and the definition of achievable endpoints and establishment of appropriate control groups or comparators.

Finally, this review highlights complementary technologies recently combined with microfluidics (e.g. automatic and artificial intelligence-powered imaging, in situ non-invasive metabolic sensing) which can guarantee a more precise and safe handling of biological samples, favour automation of sample processing (e.g. gametes), and provide new information and higher level of control of the laboratory techniques used by clinics to treat patients in the next 5-10 years.

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