By MANON OUD Approximately 1% of all men fail to produce sperm at all. In a recent publication in the New England Journal of Medicine, Nagirnaja and Mørup et al. demonstrate one of the causes for such complete lack of sperm production, which is called non-obstructive azoospermia. The results point to a direct mechanistic effect …
Fertility preservation in young people before gonadotoxic therapies (for cancer or other diseases) is nowadays one of the most challenging issues in reproductive biology. However, interesting breakthroughs are bringing it closer to reality. As we commented in our last post, Dr. Goossens’ group achieved complete spermatogenesis in intratesticular testis tissue xenotransplants from immature non-human primates. …
Boys receiving gonadotoxic treatment (e.g. chemo- or radiotherapy) before puberty face the possibility of being infertile when they reach adulthood due to the loss of germ cells. As mature spermatozoa are not present, the only fertility preservation strategy currently offered involves the cryopreservation of immature testis tissue (ITT) containing spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs). Auto-transplantation of …