Grant: Project Grant

Recent research progress has made many types of cancer curable. This development led to a new situation where the post-cancer quality of life became a significant concern for cancer patients. Sperm-producing process is vulnerable to anti-cancer therapies, which can lead to permanent infertility in male cancer survivors. Preservation of the ability to have children draws a particular interest in the patients, and their partners and families. For male patients, the only approach to protect their fertility is currently sperm banking. This approach, however, is not applicable to infants and boys before puberty. Thus, childhood cancer patients face a significant risk of infertility, long before they are ready to make decisions about childbearing and household formation, which also places burdens on their parents. An emerging concept of therapeutic approach to this problem is based on sperm-making stem cells. These cells continuously produce millions of sperm everyday throughout life after puberty. Although sperm production is not established in prepubertal boys, these sperm-producing stem cells do exist from the time of birth. Thus, these cells can be harvested and freeze-stored before cancer therapy, and transplanted back to the patients afterwards when they are ready to form a family. Our research aims at improving the efficiency of transplanting these cells toward making our novel approach a clinical reality.