A Canadian scientist is trying to make sperm in a lab

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UBC Lab is creating an optimal environment for the working of cells collected from men.

A Canadian scientist seems to be on the approach of using a 3D bio-printer in his lab to create human sperm.

Dr. Ryan Flannigan, an assistant professor of urology at the University of British Columbia, has been producing living tissue with the device. According to him, the machine is a newer and uncommon piece of technology, with only a few in the entire university.

Flannigan explains, "We're 3D printing these cells into a very specific structure that mimics human anatomy, which we believe is our best shot at stimulating sperm production."

His ambition is to one day be able to help persons suffering from untreatable male infertility.

His printer creates life-size models of human seminiferous tubules, the structures within the testicles that produce sperm, that are 300-400 microns (a millionth of a metre) across.

The printer puts a set of cells taken from the patient's testicles within those tubules that, when combined, would typically make sperm in the human body.

So far, Flannigan's team has achieved positive results: stem cells implanted in these tubules not only lasted for 12 days, but they also started sustaining themselves and developing into specialized cells involved in sperm production.

Both of these are encouraging signals, according to Flannigan, that they may be able to induce sperm production in their 3D-printed cells.

Flannigan and his team would take cells from a patient's testicles, nurture them in the lab, then insert them in printed tubules in an environment similar to that inside the human body and promote sperm production.

That's where they're at with their research right now. Maintaining stem cells and allowing them to differentiate into more specialized forms is only half the struggle.

Flannigan's research also includes keeping those cells in culture and figuring out how they communicate with one another, such as what signals they send back and forth at different stages of the sperm-generation process.

The mission is to find nutrients or growth factors that can nourish those cells and aid in sperm production. He believes it's a challenging technique to study in a living human body since sperm creation is a highly coordinated affair involving 15-20 cell types.

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Researchers can try numerous ways until they identify one that leads to sperm production since they can recreate the mechanism outside the body.

Flannigan may create sperm in a petri dish for the patient in one scenario, which could subsequently be utilized for IVF in the other. In another, researchers may use the printed cells as a template to find a remedy for whatever is preventing the patient from producing his own sperm and then treat the patient accordingly, allowing him to produce his own.

Infertility affects roughly one out of every six couples in Canada. About half of the time, the problem is with the male; about 15% of those with severe male infertility – no sperm production at all — have severe male infertility.

The disease is known as nonobstructive azoospermia (NOA), and it's considered to be caused by a malfunction in the testicle's processes. About half of men with NOA can benefit from expensive and time-consuming microsurgery in which surgeons hunt for unusual sites of sperm production within the testicles and collect the sperm for IVF (IVF).

Flannigan is trying to help the other half, individuals who do not have any areas of sperm production.

"We're hoping to find out what's going on in these individuals' testicles from a single-cell perspective," he explains.

"How come these males can't generate sperm?" Is there a single cell or a group of cells that aren't working properly? Is there a method to feed their growth factors, nutrition, and other elements in the lab to assist them to overcome functional limitations and promote sperm production?"

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The research has an additional advantage. Beyond sperm, using a 3D bio-printer to represent a complex human system outside of the body offers up new possibilities. Researchers could learn to apply the same technique to other poorly known complex systems in the human body, such as how synapses in the nervous system communicate.

As a result, treatments that we couldn't imagine today could become a reality.

"In the lab, we've never had a system where we could put the cell kinds together and analyze their interactions and communication," adds Flannigan. "And because they all co-regulate each other, the type of research we've been able to undertake with humans has been severely limited."

Source: The star