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Just when it seemed that genetic manipulation had gone as far as it could go for a while, an announcement came from Japan that the team of Prof. Nikolaos Sofikitis at Tottori University at Yonago in Japan had succeeded in getting rats and mice to produce human sperm.  Somehow this was the most obscene of the growing list of obscenities coming from the genetic manipulation laboratories.

This stunt was achieved by transplanting some of the rodents' eye cells into their testes along with spermatogonia (the cells responsible for producing sperm) taken from infertile men. 

The purpose of this exercise?  Sometime in years hence, infertile men might be able to father children with sperm cells produced by rodents.  The parents of such a child will put in an unusually anxious nine months--unless, of course, some other scientist manages to arrange a surrogate mother pig or cow.

Other problems to be overcome: the eternal problem of transpecies virus transmission, and what happens if one of those sperm-producing mice manages to mate with one of its own kind?

For now, the next step is to see if the human sperm produced by these rodents can fertilize a human egg. Prof. Sofikitis has requested permission to find out from the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology (HSOG).

Prof. Kazumori Ochiai of Tokyo's Jikei University Hospital, who usually speaks for JSOG has declined to comment.

Prof. Masao Miyagawa, who supervised the work said it was for society to decide whether to make use of such sperm.  "It is beyond our judgement," he said.

BBC News February 3, 1998

Meanwhile, in Australia, Prof. Roger Short of the Department of Perinatal Medicine at Melbourne's Royal Women's Hospital defended turning mice into incubators for human sperm production because it could help scientists understand the process of human sperm production and perhaps lead to treatment for testicular cancer.

Theoretically, mice could nurture genetically-manipulated sperm cells from infertile men.  "That's a long way down the track," Short told reporter Len Deighton of The Age.  "Now it's totally unethical, premature and scientifically dangerous to attempt to fertilize human eggs with sperm produced in another animal."

Dr. Rob Loblay of the University of Sydney agreed.  "Before applying such techniques to people, scientists must show that they do not lead to birth defects, and must guarantee that mouse viruses cannot jump to humans.

Short has applied for funding from the US National Institutes of Health and has received approval from the appropriate animal ethics committee.  He wants to confirm his earlier experiments and those at the University of Pennsylvania showing rats and mice can be manipulated to produce each other's sperm and if rat sperm, produced in mice, can fertilize a rat egg.

The Age  30 January 1999

Comment:  More messing about with the elements of life to see what might happen--like kids playing with a chemistry set.

March 17, 1999

SUBSEQUENT INFORMATION
from article in  Halifax Herald via Ty Savoy

STERILE MEN FIND 'CURE' BY MATURING SPERM IN RATS

Well, it turns out it's already happened.  According to Italian gynecologist Dr Severino Antinori,  three Italian and one Japanese man have fathered children by having their sperm matured in rats' testicals.

"The experiment was denounced by Italy's Bioethics Committee as 'an extreme manipulation,' while other experts said that the operation could have 'unpredictable consequences'".

Dr Antinori. whose accomplishments include helping a postmenopausal 62-year-old woman to become pregnant, informed an assisted-procreation conference in Venice, that this method circumvented Italian legislation forbidding the use of donor sperm.  After spending three months in the rat testicles, the sperm was used for in vitro fertilization. 

The babies appear to be normal, but Prof. Carlo Foresta of the University of Padua warned that "the dialogue between the genes in the sperm and the environment surrounding it (the cells and hormones of a rat) could have unpredictable genetic consequences."

Francesco D'Agostino, president of the Italian National Committee for Bioethics commented: "It could have worrying consequences by mixing up man and animal."

Condemnation came from "a wide spectrum of political parties" including the National Alliance, the Greens and the Christian Democratic
Centre. 

Dr Antinori said he believed the method would succeed in 10% of the cases in which it was tried.  Also that five more women - in Japan, France, South Korea and the US - are expecting babies fathered by this method.

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Index to articles on xenotransplants

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Introduction to Citizens for Planetary Health