Grant: Operating Grant

Stem cells are vital to maintain normal tissue structure and function in our body and are capable of regenerating a damaged tissue. Spermatogenesis is a system that generates numerous sperm everyday - a man produces ~1000 sperm at every heartbeat. This remarkably high-throughput process is supported by spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) or sperm-producing stem cells, which can produce themselves throughout life and continuously give rise to cells that are destined to become sperm. Due to the high-cell turnover activity, spermatogenesis is highly sensitive to chemo- and radiation cancer therapy, causing temporal or even permanent male infertility. As cancer survival rates improve, preservation and restoration of male fertility has become a serious concern of cancer survivors. The only option currently available to preserve the fertility of these patients is sperm banking. However, the rate of successful conception using these sperm can be as low as 25%. Furthermore, this option is not available for childhood cancer patients, who do not produce sperm at the time of therapy. Therefore, new approaches need to be developed. Since SSCs do exist from the time of birth, a strategy to harvest SSCs before therapy and transplant them afterwards is expected to become an important method to safeguard fertility for men of any age whose reproductive ability is at risk. Importantly, this strategy is possible in mice right now. It is up to us to make this strategy a clinical reality However, this approach is not without limitations. One of them is the low efficiency of SSCs to successfully settle in the testis environment after transplantation to regenerate spermatogenesis. Our proposed research project is aimed at improving this efficiency.