Azoospermia & artificial sperm
Azoospermia may be treatable
Finally, some light for those who have azoospermia, ie have no sperm at all. Till now this has been completely untreatable and the couple have had no option but to adopt a child or use donor sperm. The work on artificial sperm has been ongoing for many years with some sporadic successes reported. This report however, is the closest we have been to viable artificial sperm from which offspring have been born. While the work relates to laboratory mice, it is only a matter of time (beware, this may take years) before we begin to see human work. Ongoing work will have to demonstrate that this is a safe procedure without genetic defects in the offspring before any human sperm development is attempted.
If you are not squeamish, here is a photo of the mouse calves born after the use of the artificial sperm. They are identical to the real calves in every way.
Azoospermia may be treatable
We salute the Japanese scientists for their breakthrough in this area of research.