Cells that make sperm make stem cells, too: study

Stem cells that normally make sperm can be taught to make other tissues as well, perhaps offering men a medical repair kit...

Stem cells that normally make sperm can be taught to make other tissues as well, perhaps offering men a medical repair kit, US researchers said on Wednesday. They found a way to easily pick the cells out from other tissue in the testicles and to grow them into batches big enough to use medically.

This provides a new source of stem cells, the body’s master cells, which experts hope can be used to treat injuries, replace diseased tissue and perhaps even regenerate organs. Dr Shahin Rafii of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute worked with mice, and is starting work now to find the same cells in humans.

“Some hurdles remain, of course — we have to replicate these findings in humans, and we haven’t discovered the exact “switch” that would allow us to control their development on demand,” Rafii said in a statement.

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“Nevertheless, it appears that these unique specialised spermatogonial cells could be an easily obtained and manipulated source of stem cells with exactly the same capability to form new tissues that we see in embryonic stem cells.”

On Tuesday, the National Institutes of Health said it would follow a presidential executive order to encourage the search for various sources of stem cells. President George W Bush opposes the use of most embryonic stem cells — those taken from tiny human embryos.

Rafii’s is one of many new sources being worked on by researchers, who have found so-called adult stem cells in blood, bone marrow and other tissue. Other, more primitive cells have been found in the placenta and amniotic fluid.