An Artificial Testicle? Development Project Gets Funding

The notion of building various body parts and organs from scratch is not new.  There are several projects and experiments underway that are aiming to do just that.  But, a novel effort has just received funding – constructing an artificial testicle.

The effort is being undertaken by two U.S. companies that have been awarded funding from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health). The two companies received the grant to construct an artificial human testicle and explore how sperm are made from stem cells.

This project comes on the heels of news that an American became only the second person ever to receive an artificial trachea, made of a plastic scaffold seeded with his own cells.  This and reports of artificial heart valves, livers and other body parts and organs are taking science and medicine far beyond where medicine has ever gone before.

Mouse Sperm Used

In the case of the effort to create an artificial testicle, the work will try to produce mature human sperm in a live laboratory model of a human testicle. If successful, the artificial testicle could lead to the development of fertile sperm that can be made from various stem cells in mice, say the researchers involved in the project.  However, they acknowledge that previous efforts to create human stem cells from mice have not been successful. Nevertheless, they believe it may some day be possible to develop patient-specific, fertile sperm for men who are unable to make sperm due to genetic or acquired causes.

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