Scientists in Spain say they have created human sperm from skin cells.
Carlos Simon, the scientific director of the Valencia Infertility Institute set out with a team of researchers to find a solution for the roughly 15% of couples worldwide who are unable to have children and whose only option is to use donated sperm or eggs.
Simon and his team managed to reprogramme mature skin cells by introducing a cocktail of genes needed to create gametes.
Within a month, the skin cell was transformed to become a germ cell which can develop into sperm or an egg, but it did not have the ability to fertilise, they found.
“This is a sperm but it needs a further maturation phase to become a gamete. This is just the beginning,” Simon said.
The finding from this research is a medical feat which could eventually lead to a treatment for infertility.
The result of their research, which was carried out with Stanford University in the United States, was published in Scientific Reports, the online journal of Nature.
S.O.Z