After decades of research, Japanese scientists have succeeded in growing functioning mouse sperm in laboratory conditions. This breakthrough offers a new ray of hope for the millions of unfertile men who hope to one day father children.
The findings were reported in the March edition of the Journal of Nature.
The research, conducted by Takehiko Ogawa of Yokohama City University, not only produced healthy mouse sperm in a laboratory dish, with that sperm, it was able to produce healthy (and fertile) offspring.
The sperm was created from cells taken from the testicles of newborn mice. The sperm was then injected into eggs, resulting in twelve healthy babies. All twelve babies were fertile and fully able to produce their own offspring upon reaching adulthood.
Martin Dym, a professor of biochemistry and molecular and cellular biology at Georgetown University called the success “a significant breakthrough” in the field of male fertility. He did comment, however, that “you have to show that it can work in humans.” Dym participated in research that attempted similar sperm production ten years ago. Their research was not successful.
Mary Ann Handel, a reproductive genetics research scientist at the Jackson Laboratory in Maine, is also positive about the potential of this project, commenting that “[Ogawa] really achieved a goal that a lot of people have tried over the years.”
Approximately eight to ten percent of the male population faces infertility. This research holds out a potential solution for many of those men.
Cancer patients who have undergone chemotherapy make up a large number of those facing infertility. Adult males do have the option of freezing their sperm before undergoing cancer radiation treatment, and many have been successful in having children after cancer.
Prepubescent cancer patients, however, do not have this option available to them. This research potentially will provide the means to produce healthy sperm from young patients’ prepubescent testicular tissue.
Another potential use of this genetic research is the propagation of endangered species. This technology could be used to protect reproductive cells of endangered animals that may die before successfully reproducing.
Researchers at Muenster University in Germany and at Ben-Gurion University in Israel have also conducted similarly successful research. Researchers are working quickly in the hopes of reproducing the same results in humans.
“We are confident that if it can be done in a mammal such as a mouse it can be done in humans,” Professor Huleihel of Ben-Gurion University said.