This paper reviews recent research and development on microwave sterilization, including the experiments of sterilization effects, the influence of microwave radiating on the media parameters, the development of microwave sterilizers and the study of sterilization mechanism. Many results show that the method of microwave sterilization is more easy-to-perform, economical and reproducible than the conventional autoclaving method. It is necessary to study the sterilization conditions through the experiments for different media and bacteria. The research on sterilization mechanism, especially non-thermal sterilization mechanism is still a hotpoint.