American men have a fertility problem, and UTSA biologist Brian Hermann has been tasked to find out why, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Hermann, who is an assistant professor of biology, has received a $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to conduct what he expects to be a five year study into why several studies have shown that men today have significantly lower sperm levels than twenty or thirty years ago, and to come up with ideas to tackle the problem.
Many researchers think environmental factors are to blame, everything from the chemicals in plastics we use to too much time spent with the iPad on your lap.
Hermann says that is one of the things his research will explore.
“I’m not aware of any really solid data to suggests that there are particular types of exposures, chemical, environmental, or otherwise, that are of particular concern,” he said.
Hermann says his research will delve into the mysterious dawn of human life. He says sperm cells are formed from what are called ‘spermatogonial stem cells.’ They have not positively been identified, and may not be easy to isolate, and he says they form into sperm cells when a future male child is still in the womb. So his research will delve into some unstudied areas of the origins of a human life.
“Our strategy is to understand how the cells that will ultimately make sperm in men are formed.”
He says sometimes sperm turn out to be malformed, and in order to understand why that happens, researchers first have to understand how normal sperm cells are formed.
Hermann will utilize technologies available at UTSA called single-cell gene expression profiling, which will allow him to study the characteristics of a single stem cell.
“If we know how fertility works and how it forms in men, we can then learn how it goes wrong.”He says he doesn’t know whether his research will lead to some sort of ‘pill’ to cure male infertility, or lead to an understanding of which environmental factors to avoid.
“If we treat mom with this drug during gestation, or if a man is infertile we can urge him to try this regimen or this diet, maybe that would help.”