US scientists aim to make human sperm from stem cells
Source: BBC
US scientists aim to make human sperm from stem cells
By Regan Morris
BBC News, Los Angeles
Skin cells become 'grandparents'
US researchers say they will redouble their efforts to create human sperm from stem cells following the success of a Japanese study involving mice.
A Kyoto University team used mice stem cells to create eggs, which were fertilised to produce baby mice.
Dr Renee Pera, of Stanford University in California, aims to create human sperm to use for reproduction within two years, and eggs within five years.
........................
"I know people think it's Frankenstein medicine, but I think it's not an imagined or lessened health problem - infertility affects your whole life," Dr Pera says.
Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19879113
Orrex
(63,213 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)johnlucas
(1,250 posts)Take ALL the fun out of sex why don't you?
Just fix sexual malfunctions. Don't play God around here.
John Lucas
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)Was there a sperm shortage that I was previously unaware of?
WheelWalker
(8,955 posts)LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)and concluded that the men here are having no problems.
Seriously, this just seems weird. Was there a genuine need for this, other than individual vanity? The human race as a whole seems to be reproducing just fine.
WheelWalker
(8,955 posts)that gave us an effective male contraceptive...
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)formercia
(18,479 posts)Cloning the ultimate Warrior of the 21st Century.
4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)dimbear
(6,271 posts)male pregnancies.
Cloning is so boring after the thrill wears off.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)we are big babies. lol
Missycim
(950 posts)is a lot worse then giving birth. I can attest the stone part is painful
dimbear
(6,271 posts)That might be a good avenue for the guys only section.
Missycim
(950 posts)I hope I'm out of here before that day
Speck Tater
(10,618 posts)Clearly once they can reproduce without us men they will simply haul us all away to those secret clinics in the mountains and subject us all to mandatory sex-change operations.
4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)So . . . I maybe we'll split in to two warring factions.
I remember some late night post-apocalyptic movie on that theme. Can't recall the name though.
Gore1FL
(21,132 posts)I will be happy to demonstrate for investors.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Something bad waiting to happen.
defacto7
(13,485 posts)when they cross those Japanese stem cell mice eggs with those Stanford stem cell human sperms?
I just don't get it!
jmowreader
(50,559 posts)It refers to people who have gone to war.
In Bush's illegal wars, there were two signature injuries: traumatic brain injury and genital damage. We ran a story several months back about soldiers coming back with their balls blown off who were super depressed they'd never be fathers.
The obvious solution is to quit sending guys to illegal wars where you can get your balls blown off, but that doesn't do much for the thousands of troops it already happened to.
midnight
(26,624 posts)It was deemed to risky for the rest of us... I wonder how long the rich get access to these advances while the rest of us just read about them....
JRLeft
(7,010 posts)Fearless
(18,421 posts)For a reasonable response!
AAO
(3,300 posts)There is something seriously wrong here!!
yurbud
(39,405 posts)Downwinder
(12,869 posts)of a radar unit, all is not lost.
are they working on "Gendercide" ?
lumpy
(13,704 posts)insane
truthisfreedom
(23,148 posts)Actually, we're being human. This is what we do... we figure out what is possible and then try it.
Socal31
(2,484 posts)Afterall, so many "accidental" or secondary scientific discoveries happen when we least expect it.
However, as others have mentioned in this thread, sperm is not in short supply!
Tcbys
(63 posts)In terms of Genetic defects. If theres no difference that maybe good way for couples to have kids.
Alcibiades
(5,061 posts)These new reproductive techniques are an experiment in the making. We only get results as they are used on a large scale basis. We are only now, for example, finding out about the risks of the most common reproductive innovations:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/15/health/research/birth-defect-risk-higher-with-fertility-treatments-study-shows.html?_r=0
One finding:
"Women who had any fertility treatment were more likely to have a stillbirth, to have a low-birthweight baby, and to deliver before 32 weeks of gestation. Unsurprisingly, parental factors played a large role. For example, babies conceived without treatment by women who had previously had fertility treatments had a 25 percent greater risk for birth defects.
Dr. Pasquale Patrizio, director of the Yale University Fertility Center, who was not involved in the study, said this was a significant finding. The most important message that I take from this is that it confirms pretty strongly the fact that infertility itself increases the risk for birth defects. If youre infertile, youre already at higher risk even if you dont take any treatment.
That's only one possibility: the other is that things such as hormones may have longer-acting effects than we understand, and that some of the increased risk is due to the treament itself.
We'll only really know if this is successful when, in a couple of decades, the people produced by this method are examined.
Spermatogenesis itself is a complicated process not entirely understood by medical science. THere is a lot that can go wrong: while it's common to attribute birth defects to such things as the age of the mother (i.e. it seems there's an impulse to blame women) it's becoming increasingly evident that the health and enviromnent of the father is also important. There has been a very strong selection pressure that has enabled most male organisms today to get this right, and I really doubt anything coming out of the lab will be as good for a very long time.
Nihil
(13,508 posts)There are over 7 billion people on this planet and it is growing every day.
There is absolutely NO shortage of human sperm and definitely NO shortage
of new human mouths to feed so just WHY is this viewed as a "useful" issue
to solve?
How about solving the problem of too many unwanted children before
displacing even more children by avoiding adoption in favour of a pointless
gimmick like this?
How about solving the problem of too many inherited diseases ?
How about solving the problems of child abuse, kidnapping, murder,
exploitation rather than just providing fuel?
4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)one is a scientific problem.
The other is social.
How about solving the problem of too many unwanted children before
displacing even more children by avoiding adoption in favour of a pointless
gimmick like this?
How do you "solve" that problem? People aren't stray cats. You can't forcibly sterilize them or put them down if they breed out of control.
How about solving the problem of too many inherited diseases ?
By telling certain people they can't breed?
How about solving the problems of child abuse, kidnapping, murder,
exploitation rather than just providing fuel?
You know, if we got away with all medical care relating to pregnancies and childhood vaccinations there would be more children dying at a young age. That would alleviate this problem would it not?
Nihil
(13,508 posts)I notice you didn't address my first point
>> There are over 7 billion people on this planet and it is growing every day.
>> There is absolutely NO shortage of human sperm and definitely NO shortage
>> of new human mouths to feed so just WHY is this viewed as a "useful" issue
>> to solve?
Does this not raise any concern in you?
I agree that the true solution to the other three questions are social rather than
purely scientific. I also agree that the "social" solutions for the first two are not ones
that will be readily accepted - especially in societies where women are viewed purely
as breeding machines to be used to achieve the goal of outnumbering the "others".
(Your third "solution" wasn't worthy of the name but the answer would be - again - social
not scientific.)
Do you agree with my first point or do you believe that we need more & more humans
on the planet?
Additionally, do you believe that adding more & more humans who are otherwise
removed from the gene pool is a good thing for the species?
polichick
(37,152 posts)RKP5637
(67,109 posts)Josef Mengele in his labs with horrific medical research experiments on humans.
RC
(25,592 posts)And working around that infertility weakens the human race genetically as a whole. You know, evolution? The human race is already fucked up enough as it is.
Don't let Monsanto get involved in this. Do we really need people that make their own Round Up? Just piss into the 5 gallon can till it is full.
It is bullshit that just because we can reproduce, we should. Being pregnant is not a miracle, it is evolution, the normal course of events of being an sexual animal. We are destroying this planet, the only home we will ever know, with our shear numbers. We don't need more help to increase the population on this already over crowded planet. We are doing that through our normal arrogance just fine.
There are more kids to adopt that parents to adopt them. As others have mentioned, we need birth control for both sexes far more than we need new ways for the infertile to reproduce and contaminate the gene pool even more.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)It used to be that as long as they had a heartbeat during sex they could procreate and then it didn't matter if they dropped dead from the joy of it, whereas women had to hang around for a few more months to have the baby, and then to feed it for awhile.
Now? Not so much.
I'm just kidding in case anyone takes this seriously. LOL!