Immaculate conception, almost

New research in the field of stem cell development may lead to artificial sperm.

There’s no telling what stem cells could be used to create next. This week’s scientific breakthrough that has the community buzzing — the creation of artificial sperm — is foretelling a plethora of possibilities in this field. A notch louder than the buzz, are concerns that men would now have an insignificant role to play in procreation. But it’s likely that this experiment favours men, aiding them out of infertility. As one theory suggests, by removing tissue from the testes, immature sperm could be cultured and restored to a sterile man.

Meanwhile, offshoots to the creation of artificial sperm — the concept of ‘therapeutic cloning’, for instance — is the likelihood of use of embryonic stem cells that will carry a person’s own genes. Reports suggest that in the future it might be possible to produce sperm from female stem cells, eggs from male stem cells; which could allow homosexual couples to have an offspring that bears both their genes. It could also enable a single person to have a child of her own using only her genes. At the moment such suggestions pose innumerable obstacles like bearing an unhealthy foetus, for example. Researchers, needless to add, are fine-tuning their experiment.

The study released this week on artificial sperm was first published in the journal Stem Cells and Development following an experiment conducted by a team of genetic scientists, led by a Professor Karim Nayernia at a German university. Seven mouse pups were born in a laboratory after scientists fertilised eggs with sperm grown from embryonic stem cells. Six of the baby mice survived to adulthood. But their growth rate was abnormal and none of the offsprings made it beyond five months. However, being the first successful experiment in creating artificial sperm, it has received worldwide attention.

It’s too early to celebrate these findings, especially as further tests are still being carried out to see whether it could work for humans as well. As for ethical concerns about artificial sperm, we’ll deal with them later.