Sperm Stem Cells Were Used for the First Time in an Attempt to Restore Fertility

Jaiwen Hsu was an active 11-year-old when he developed pain in his left knee that forced him to sit out a few soccer games. What his parents thought was a sports injury turned out to be osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer. He started chemotherapy, which doctors warned could result in infertility. Hsu hadn’t reached puberty yet, so sperm banking wasn’t an option. His parents enrolled him in a study that was collecting and storing immature testicular tissue, and the sperm-forming stem cells in them, from young patients with the goal of eventually giving them a way to have biological children. Now 26, Hsu and his doctors are waiting to see if an experimental transplant of these cells, extracted from a tissue sample taken back in 2011, will be able to restart sperm production. The procedure has been successful in mice and monkeys, but researchers say Hsu was the first person to undergo it in November 2023. The technique is detailed in a new paper that has yet to be peer-reviewed. “As an ... Read full article.