Californian researchers are trying to create an artificial testicle that will produce human sperm. Dr. Paul Turek, director of the Turek Clinic in San Francisco, which specializes in male infertility, said the goal is not to create a testicular implant for men, but a “sperm-making biological machine” that will help scientists learn more about just what causes male infertility. “We’re trying to recreate the process of sperm production in a three-dimensional system,” Turek said. “Simple laboratory conditions can’t get it done in humans. Our concept is to actually recreate the testicle itself.”
The team revealed that they would build an artificial testicle by first growing cells that nurture sperm – Sertoli cells in the lab and then adding embryonic stem cells to hopefully create new sperm cells which naturally occur in a man’s seminiferous tubules. Turek added that this research if successful could produce sperm for infertile men that could be used in IVF treatments to conceive children, but achieving that goal will likely not happen for many years.
Unlike current testicle prostheses, which are typically used in men with testicular cancer who have had a testicle removed and do not produce sperm, these substitutes wouldn’t actually resemble testicles. Instead, Turek explains that it would probably resemble a bag a few inches in length — “something like a transparent, oversized Tootsie Roll,” he said. And it would probably only last about 70 days, the typical length of one cycle of sperm production after which another one would have to be built.
Dr. Rick Paulson, director of the fertility program at the University of Southern California, told ABC News that if Turek and his team are successful, it could be an exciting step forward for men who lose their testicles to cancer, accidents or other factors that leave them without the ability to make sperm. But the team will face a few hurdles, Paulson said. “The processing of DNA is very complicated to go from a regular cell to a germ cell” like sperm, which have half the number of chromosomes as other cells in the body, Paulson explained. “Not only do you have to split the chromosomes in half, but you also have to package the DNA in a very specific way. I think it will be quite challenging.”
“It's an ambitious project,” Kyle Orwig, an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at the University of Pittsburgh told My Health News Daily. “But it would be fantastic if it happened. It would have an important impact on fundamental investigations of human sperm production as well as the fertility field.”
Approximately 15 percent of couples are infertile, and in about half of those cases, the man is the source of the infertility, according to the Mayo Clinic. Scientists are already able to harvest sperm from the testicles of men who produce their own sperm, just not enough to be fertile. Paulson said the next, far more challenging task for researchers will be to create eggs from stem cells to help infertile women.
Turek and his colleague Dr. Constance John, chief executive of MandalMed Inc., a biotech company in San Francisco, received a Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
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