New hope for infertile men

Men’s skin cells were turned into immature sperm thanks to a new technique that could put an end to male infertility.

Image: Alex Mitt/Shutterstock

There’s some promising news for men diagnosed with infertility – including the 1 percent who cannot produce any sperm.
Scientist removed skin cells from three infertile men and turned them into testicular stem cells. These were then injected into mice testes, where, surprisingly, they developed into early-stage sperm cells.
The researchers suspect that injecting testicular stem cells into infertile men’s testes will result in mature sperm cells.
"This work suggests these infertile men might have had testicular stem cells at some point, and the problem is that they cannot maintain them,” explained Allan Pacey, senior lecturer at Sheffield University, to the Guardian. “So if you can make iPS cells and put them back into the man, you might be able to keep enough in the testes for them to produce some sperm. You'll never restore them back to normal, but they might have a few months or years of making sperm that's enough to give them fertility back.”
The breakthough could be a game changer for men who are unable to make healthy sperm and for those that have lost their fertility due to cancer treatments.

Source: The Guardian