Stem Cells Far From Fighting Infertility

Scientists hope to someday coax stem cells into becoming sperm which could then be implanted in infertile men, allowing them to conceive.

It's not certain whether -- or even if -- that will happen, as is made clear by this somewhat schizophrenic article.

Entitled "Stem Cells Step to Stamp Out Infertility," the piece is subtitled, "One U.K. Scientist Believes That We're Just Five Years Away
From Creating Mature Sperm Cells From Stem Cells."

Of course, you can find one scientist who believes pretty much anything. ("One U.S. Scientists Believes That Space Elevator Is Just
Around The Corner.") If one scientist's proclamations are going to be emphasized thusly, he or she ought to have some colleagues who agree, or at least some research to back it up.

The researcher under discussion is Newcastle University's Karim
Nayernia, who has previously shown that mouse stem cells can be turned into sperm cells -- albeit incompletely developed, biologically useless sperm cells. Now he's done the same thing with human stem cells.

Nayernia -- no doubt a good scientist, and understandably excited about his work -- is quoted "express[ing] his excitement ... saying that this
'represents a real breakthrough from a biological and medical point of view."

The necessary caveat comes next: "But the fact that the third crucial division did not take place in mouse cells or in human cells has led other experts in the field to counsel caution about taking this new study's conclusions to heart.

All well and good. Except it seems that the articles author wasn't able to find anyone who thinks this research is nearly as meaningful as
Nayernia believes. Indeed, outside sources are scathing:

David Smotrich, founder and medical director of the fertility institute LaJolla IVF in California, said that "although there's been tremendous excitement surrounding this study, I am skeptical about its implications. If you can't even coax these cells into becoming mature sperm cells in mice, under lab conditions, then I certainly don't see how you can make it happen in human beings."

"The hype tremendously supercedes any possibility of such trials contributing to fertility therapy," he said.

Then we go back to Nayernia, who believes that "it is only a matter of months before lab tests show such partially formed sperm cells developing into fully functional sperm."

This is an extremely optimistic statement, to be charitable, given that he hasn't even been able to do this with mouse cells. And so:

Not every scientist shares his hopes. Malcolm Alison, professor of stem cell biology at the Queen Mary School of Medicine and
Dentistry in London, echoed Smotrich's concerns when he criticized the study and the hype surrounding its conclusions for being "excessive and premature."

Alison said that "although this isn't dubious science exactly, it's certainly preliminary science. After all, these cells never underwent the critical process of cell division -- they didn't pass the 'acid test.'"

He continued, "This is not advanced research. It's almost like a school-level biology experiment. But because anything to do with fertility and reproduction gets attention, a relatively unsophisticated experiment has captured the public's imagination."

Finally, we end up with Nayernia once more, who says clinical trials of lab-developed sperm cells will be up and running in three to five years, or just as soon as "we have more results in the lab."

From a journalistic standpoint, I'm a little confused about what to think of this. The article does a good job of presenting the necessary caveats and not being carried away by hype -- but the caveats are so damning, and the hype so overblown, as to make me wonder why it was written in the first place.

Stem Cells Set to Stamp Out Infertility [ABC News]

Image: Andrea Jaccarino