A Utah-based American company, Paterna Biosciences, has caused quite a stir in the scientific world after announcing that it has successfully cultivated human sperm in a laboratory petri dish for the first time. While the company has managed to create healthy sperm using these laboratory-produced sperm and has also been able to produce viable embryos, this finding has not yet been verified or confirmed by other experts.
According to Alexander Pastuszak, the company's CEO, stem cells that produce sperm were cultured outside the body, and with the assistance of computer models, they precisely calculated the necessary chemical signals to allow mature sperm to develop. "We have discovered the guidelines that can convert stem cells into normal mature sperm," he said.
This technology will bring new hope to 10 to 15 percent of infertile men who face the problem of azoospermia, the complete inability to produce sperm. Although these men have the necessary stem cells, they cannot convert them into sperm due to the biological environment conditions in their body, which the laboratory can now substitute for. Paterna company estimates that treatment using this technology could cost between $5,000 to $12,000 USD per procedure.
Ref: Fossbytes
