Artificial sperm

By Joana Roig

Scientists from Yokohama University (Japan) have produced sperm in the laboratory. This achievement gives hope to men with infertility, although this research was only performed on mice. According to investigators from Nature magazine, creating sperm is one of the longest and most complicated processes in the human body. In the laboratory, Ogawa and his professional team extirpated small pieces of testicles of young mice and cultured them at 34 ºC. This experiment lasted for a few weeks more, because the investigators wanted to check whether the testicles they had used before worked after producing their first sperm. The results show that the culture system can maintain the sperm for two months or more. Then, they had to prove that this artificial sperm could fertilize an ovule, so they tried to fertilize 58 ovules in vitro with some of the sperm they produced in the laboratory. The embryos were implanted into females. The investigators waited for the sperm to grow, and while it was growing they did not observe any health problems. The twelve mice born as a result of the laboratory sperm were fertile. The young mice conceived with this artificial sperm grew normally, without any health problems, and when they became adult they were fertile. This is a big step in the fight against men's infertility, and it will also be useful for men who have suffered from cancer and want to have children.