Células testiculares humanas impressas em 3D

Cientistas no Canadá British Columbia (UBC) usam tecnologia 3D para imprimir células testiculares humanas e descobrem que elas têm os primeiros sinais do esperma para produzir esperma, que é a primeira vez no mundo. A equipe de pesquisa do Dr. Ryan Flannigan, Professor Assistente do UBC Urology Assistant, tem um-dia, que fornece uma solução para pacientes que atualmente não podem tratar.

"15 percent of the couple suffer from infertility, at least half of them is caused by male factors." Flannigan said its laboratory established a Vancouver's prostate center in Vancouver General Hospital. We are printing testicular cells into a special structure that imitates the human anatomy with 3D printing technology, which we believe this is the best way to stimulate sperm generation. "Flannigan said, if success, this will open the new birth treatment door for those who have no other choice.

Nos testículos humanos, o esperma é produzido por um pequeno tubo chamado tubo fino. Na infertilidade masculina mais grave-não-doença não obstrutiva não-espermática (NOA), o esperma é encontrado na ejaculação devido à redução do esperma produzido por essas pequenas estruturas tubulares. Embora em alguns casos, o médico pode ajudar os pacientes NOA a encontrar espermatozóides extremamente raros por cirurgia, mas Flannigan disse que apenas metade da taxa de sucesso.

"Unfortunately, for the other half of patients, they have no choices, because we can't find sperm for them." Flannigan said, these is the patient who wants to help. In recent studies, researchers conducted biopsy for testis of NOA patients and collected stem cells. These cells were then cultured, and 3D was printed into a hollow tubular structure on the petri dish, similar to the fine elipes capable of producing sperm.

After 12 days, the research team found that these cells did not only survive, but also growing several special cells participating in sperm production, and there was significant improvements in the maintenance of stem cells - this is the early signs of sperm production capacity. The results of this study were recently published in "Plastic and Infertility Science".

"These cells survive and start differentiation, which is a huge milestone. Although there is still a long way to go, this makes our team full of hope." Flannigan said.

The team is currently committed to the "training" cells producing sperm. In order to do this, they exposed cells in different nutrients and growth factors, and fine-tuned their structural arrangements to promote interaction between cells. If these cells can produce sperm, these sperm may pass through in vitro fertilization Make the egg fertilization and provide a new birth treatment option for the couple.

O projeto de pesquisa também revela os mecanismos genéticos e moleculares que levam à NOA. A equipe de Flannigan tem usado uma variedade de técnicas de sequenciamento de-célula única para entender a expressão gênica e as características de cada célula e, em seguida, calcular o modelo para entender melhor a causa raiz da doença e determinar um novo plano de tratamento. Este trabalho também precisa de alta colaboração, envolvendo pesquisadores da UBC em ciência da computação, matemática e engenharia, e outras cooperações internacionais.

"We are increasingly learned that infertility may have many different reasons, and every case varies from person to person." Flannigan said, "Considering this, we are taking a personalization, precise Medical Methods - Extracting the cells from the patient, trying to understand its unique abnormal conditions, and then supported by 3D printing to overcome these original defects. "