Saving monkey testicle tissue before puberty hints at a new way to preserve fertility
The results give hope to one day helping young male cancer patients
A technique with the potential to preserve fertility for prepubescent boys stricken with cancer has passed a key test in experiments conducted in monkeys: the birth of a healthy infant.
Testicle tissue samples from rhesus macaques that hadn’t reached puberty were removed, frozen and then grafted back onto the monkeys. Over the following year, as the monkeys went through puberty, the immature sperm cells in the grafts developed into sperm. In vitro fertilization with sperm from one monkey led to a successful pregnancy and the birth of a baby female macaque named Grady, researchers report in the March 22 Science.