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Again, a new scientific breakthrough raises the prospect that women could have a baby on their own by producing test-tube sperms. They have succeeded in using artificially-grown sperm to fertilise eggs. The technique could lead to a cure for some types of infertility by allowing men to “grow” their own sperm. As published in the journal Developmental Cell, scientists at Newcastle University, England revealed that they have turned stem cells from am embryo into sperm which are capable of producing offspring.

The experiment used embryo cells to produce seven baby mice, six of whom lived into adulthood, although the survivors suffered adverse events of the kind seen in cloning experiments. The researchers isolated embryonic stem cells from an embryo only a few days old consisting of a cluster of cells. The cells were grown in a laboratory and screened to isolate the spermatogonial stem calls which were grown and then injected into female mouse eggs and grown in early stage embryos. They injected these cells into 210 mouse eggs. That resulted in 65 embryos that were transplanted into female mice. Seven births followed.
They succeeded in converting stem cells taken from early mouse embryos into “spermatogonial stem cells” (SSCs), and then into functioning sperm. The babies in question were laboratory mice but the announcement raises the prospect that women could use the technique to have a human baby.

The research team led by professor Karim Nayernia, who was formerly based at Georg-August University in Germany, believes that, when safe, the advance could help men with certain types of infertility to become fertile, to remain fertile for longer and, controversially, could even one day enable a lesbian couple to have children that, at the genetic level, are truly their own.
The understanding of the biological process through which sperm is produced, which should help in the future treatment of infertility. Nayernia was quoted as saying “spermatagonial stem cells are extremely promising and more research is needed to establish their full potential.”
It is hoped that this new knowledge could be translated into treatments for men whose sperm is dysfunctional, although could be some years into the future.

Problems with the procedure remain, however. The six mice that survived were all abnormally large or abnormally small, and were infertile. Many developed lung tumours and none lived for more than five months ??? well short of the typical three-year mouse lifespan. Also, the sperm themselves had shortened tails and were unable to penetrate eggs on their own.
Some were far from healthy, suffering from conditions ranging from breathing difficulties to growth problems. Despite this, Professor Nayernia, believes his work offers hope for millions of men and similar techniques might be developed to treat infertile women.

That result is a significant advance, said Mary Ann Handel, who studies sperm formation and male infertility at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine.
Previously, other researchers had gotten as far as injecting such cells into eggs and producing early embryos, she said. But nobody else has reported live births, which demonstrates the potential of the injected cells, she said. The new results “raise interesting questions for future research on how sperm cells are formed,” she said.
John Gearhart, a stem cell expert at Johns Hopkins University, called the experiment”a nice illustration of the extraordinary power of embryonic stem cells.”He said it’s not yet clear how the mouse work would translate to human cells.

Mr Mike Judge of the UK’s Christian Institute said: “Any move that could… take fathers out of parenting is always something that could be worrying.”

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• Pic Of sperm