Male Infertility Research on Verge of Breakthrough

The experiment marks the first time that stem cells have been used to produce mature sperm in the laboratory setting. Infertility problems plague an estimated one-sixth of couples worldwide, with nearly half of those cases related to male infertility. Researchers believe that the experiment could lead to treatments in which healthy sperm cells are produced out of stem cells harvested from infertile men.

I'm not going to put forth my opinion of stem cell research in this blog, but I am going to say that this article is interesting in many ways. First of all, it lead my husband and I to actually look up the definition of "stem cell". According to www.about.com,

Definition: A stem cell is a non-specialized, generic cell which can make exact copies of itself indefinitely and can differentiate and produce specialized cells for the various tissues of the body. There are two types of stem cells: adult and embyonic. Embryonic stem cells can be obtained from either aborted fetuses or fertilized eggs that are left over from in vitro fertilization. Adult stem cells are not quite as versatile for research purposes because they are already specific to certain cell types.

Secondly, I was pleased to read that infertility is one of the roads that research has chosen to go down. From the media, I had mostly heard of cloning and such. And also the image that research could provide a "warehouse" of spare parts for injured and diseases organs. I didn't realize that infertility was also involved in this range of research.

Learning more about any issue that you feel an interest in can help see both sides more clearly. Having this issue be close to my heart made me focus my attention to the debate a little more intensely.