Mice Produce Sperm From Monkeys

In a report set for publication in the journal Biology of Reproduction, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Davis, describe a technique that yields fertile primate sperm when tissue from the testes of young rhesus monkeys are grafted into mice. The research team, headed by Dr. Ina Dobrinksi of the Center for Animal Transgenesis and Germ Cell Research in the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, believes that this method could be used to preserve genetic material from endangered nonhuman primates that might die before reproducing. It could also offer reproductive options to men rendered infertile by cancer treatments before they reach puberty.