BARRIERS to treating male infertility have been removed in groundbreaking work in a Scottish lab, it is claimed.
Tens of millions of couples worldwide struggle to conceive, with problems with the man’s system affecting half of these.
Poor or dysfunctional sperm movement is the most common disorder in male fertility. However, no treatment currently exists and affected couples currently use invasive and expensive clinical methods like in vitro fertilisation (IVF) or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) in their hopes to have a child.
Now a team from the University of Dundee has identified new ways to improve sperm motility.
The method is said to be cost-effective and avoid side effects and the scientists claim it could lead to the development of new drugs to help couples become parents. The process works to address fluctuations in calcium levels that impede sperm function, including swimming and fertilisation.
Researchers developed a high throughput screening (HTS) method to automate work to identify agents to improve sperm function, speeding up the identification of relevant genes, antibodies and compounds.
The results are published online in the specialist Human Reproduction journal and lead researcher Dr Sarah Martins da Silva called the findings “exciting and hugely relevant for patients”.
She said: “Male infertility is incredibly common but there is nothing we can currently prescribe in the vast majority of cases. The problem is that we really don’t understand how sperm function. And because we don’t really understand how they function, then we don’t know how to correct sperm dysfunction either.
“The other issue is that sperm are absolutely unique cells, designed to survive outside the body and hugely specialised to swim, find and fertilise an egg. They are small and have virtually no cytoplasm, and the cell signalling pathways can be unlike other cells. As a result, sperm are incredibly challenging to study.
“We believe we have now taken the first steps towards helping millions of couples worldwide.”
Earlier this month the Scottish Government announced plans to increase IVF provision on the NHS from two to three rounds for eligible women aged under 40.
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