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Can we really make sperm in a dish? After claiming earlier this year that they had done just that, French researchers have now taken out a patent describing their technique, although they are yet to submit details of their method and its results for peer review.
Philippe Durand and Marie-Hélène Perrard at the biotechnology company Kallistem in Lyon, France, say that their method coaxes seminiferous tubules – tissue that produces sperm in the testes – taken from humans, rats or monkeys into producing mature sperm cells.
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A team in Japan made mouse sperm in the lab in 2011, but the French researchers claim they are the first to do this in humans. After 20 years developing their method, they say they can turn the progenitor cells that are inside seminiferous tubules, called spermatogonia, into mature sperm. If true, this would be the first method to complete the final steps in making human sperm.
Read full, original post: Patent for first method to create human sperm, but does it work?
