• Question: Hi my name is Dakarai. My question is... if sperm stops producing due to an accident, would there be a way for the person to start producing sperm cells again?

    Asked by anon-250592 to Michael, Ioana on 21 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Ioana Grigoras

      Ioana Grigoras answered on 21 Mar 2020:

      Hi, Dakarai, thank you for this question, it’s very interesting! I’m afraid I don’t know enough details about the kind of accident (I’m assuming you meant traumatic, but the kind of trauma might be important too) and the mechanisms leading to sperm not being produced anymore.
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      Here, there is huge difference between the trauma causing an obstruction in the way of the sperm getting out of the body (in which case there are still normal sperm cells in the testicles) and the trauma causing the testicles to not produce sperm cells anymore. In the first scenario, I think it might still possible either to remove the obstruction or, under special circumstances, collect sperm directly from the testicles.
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      If it’s the second scenario, I’m afraid I really don’t have a response. It is definitely not my area of expertise and just because I can’t figure out how you could restore sperm production into a damaged testicle, it doesn’t mean there is no way.

Comments

  • Photo: Sophie

    Sophie commented on :

    Hi. I’m no expert either but just wanted to share how stem cells could in theory be applied to this. Stem cells are a type of cell that haven’t been given their function yet, but they have the ability to become any type of cell in our body. So, we might be able to help different types of stem cells become sperm cells by giving them the right instructions to do so.
    Doing this in a human would be much more complicated than that, but it is just another possible way it could be helped maybe.