Creating Sperm Could Assist in Understanding Infertility
Jul 10, 2009 | Posted by bryan | 0 Comments
The creation of laboratory sperm could help scientists understand why certain men suffer from infertility, a research body has claimed.
Comments from the British Fertility Society arrived after researchers at the North East England Stem Cell Institute (NESCI) announced that they had developed a new technique which enables human sperm to be made.
Dr Allan Pacey, secretary of the British Fertility Society, said that the discovery is important from a medical research perspective as it will allow new observations and experiments to go ahead.
It could allow scientists to understand why certain men are infertile and lead to the manufacture of drugs that help to overcome this, he explained.
Dr Pacey also said that the move may see scientists developing sperm which could be used to make a baby, “but that is a long, long way off”.
The development is a “good advance” in the revolutionising of treatment for infertile couples but it is only a small step and a lot more work still needs to be done in this area, he concluded.
Researchers at the NESCI used human embryonic stem cells to develop early stage sperm which they hope will help increase understanding of why genetic diseases are passed on.