Male Infertility Breakthrough Scientists Successfully Create Sperm from Monkey Stem Cells And Can Perhaps Work on Human Too

Researchers transformed stem cells into primitive sperm and demonstrated that they could fertilize an egg from a rhesus monkey.
The monkeys' reproductive processes are comparable to humans', making them an excellent and essential model for studying stem cell-based treatments for male infertility,' according to UGA scientists.
It comes five years after scientists created sperm in the lab and used it to father healthy baby mice in another groundbreaking accomplishment.
The researchers hope that their findings will one day benefit men with abnormalities that prevent them from producing sperm, as well as those whose fertility has been harmed by cancer therapy.
The work headed by UGA is the first to show that utilizing monkey embryonic stem cells, functioning sperm cells can be created in a laboratory.
Chemicals, hormones, and testicular tissue assist these cells transform into immature sperm cells. They must also undergo a meticulous reorganization of their DNA during a process known as meiosis, in which sperm cells lose half of their chromosomes so that a fertilized egg has a normal number.
“This is a significant step forward in the development of stem cell-based treatments to treat male infertility in situations when males do not generate any viable sperm cells,” said lead researcher Charles Easley, an associate professor at the University of Georgia's College of Public Health.
Researchers utilized rhesus macaque monkey embryonic stem cells to create immature sperm cells known as spherical spermatids, which lack a head and tail for swimming since they are at an early stage of development.
The ability of these spermatids to fertilize a rhesus macaque egg has been demonstrated.
The researchers said, it wasn't clear the technology could ever work to help male infertility. 'This is the first step that shows this technology is potentially translatable. We're using a species that's more relevant to us, and we're having success in making healthy embryos,’ said Easley.
This autumn, the researchers plan to take the next step of implanting these embryos into a surrogate rhesus macaque to examine whether they can produce a healthy baby. If that step is successful, the team will carry out the same process using spermatic-like cells derived from macaque skin cells. That's because another challenge the field needs to overcome is that no human adult has embryonic stem cells. Scientists think that converting skin cells into a stem cell state, which can be done reliably, is the solution. Sarah Norcross, Director of fertility and genomics charity PET said: ‘This is a significant step in establishing whether sperm created in the lab could, one day, be used for human reproduction. 'We will be watching closely as the researchers carry out this work in macaques, first seeing whether eggs fertilized with this type of sperm can lead to a pregnancy, and then seeing whether a pregnancy can be achieved with sperm derived from skin cells. 'Even if all of these things are achieved in macaques, it will still take many years and much more research before such techniques is fit for use in human treatments.'