Scientific Breakthrough For Infertile Men

When it comes to making babies, there is one tool not even the human body can conquer “” and it’s not what you think!

Test tubes are the scientific genius behind some of the world’s greatest breakthroughs and they certainly hold the gold medal when it comes to whipping up humans, in vitro style. Now they have leaped into the record books again, this time growing mature human sperm.

This is the first time sperm cells taken from infertile men have been scientifically altered to be capable of successfully fertilising eggs, a breakthrough that could change the lives of thousands affected by diseases such as cancer that cause infertiity.

According to the Independent, scientists have been trying for 20 years to find a way of producing human sperm in a test tube. But no one has been able to complete the complicated cycles of cell division “” a process that lead immature “germ cells” in the male testes to become fully mature sperm cells capable of successfully fertilising eggs.

The sperm cells made in an artificial “bioreactor” look identical to those produced naturally. The technology could be used in two to four years to help infertile men have their own biological children, according to researchers based at a French national research institute in Lyon.

“The mature sperm were made by taking small biopsies from the testes of the men, and culturing these cells in the bioreactor until they developed into fully mature sperm which look identical to those produced naturally in the testes of men,” scientific director of the research, Philippe Durand said.

However, there are still a few doubts about the quality of the sperm produces, or whether there would be any side affects to children born through this type of procreation.

The next step for the scientists is to try and give life to rats with rat sperm created using the method. From there, who knows!