Optoelectronic tweezers was used to manipulate human spermatozoa to determine whether their response to OET predicts sperm viability among non-motile sperm. We review the electro-physical basis for how live and dead human spermatozoa respond to OET. The maximal velocity that non-motile spermatozoa could be induced to move by attraction or repulsion to a moving OET field was measured. Viable sperm are attracted to OET fields and can be induced to move at an average maximal velocity of 8.8 ± 4.2 µm s−1, while non-viable sperm are repelled to OET, and are induced to move at an average maximal velocity of −0.8 ± 1.0 µm s−1. Manipulation of the sperm using OET does not appear to result in increased DNA fragmentation, making this a potential method by which to identify viable non-motile sperm for assisted reproductive technologies.
