Inside STAT: A new monkey study offers fertility hope to pediatric cancer survivors

  GRADY AT HER 2-WEEK CHECKUP. (OREGON HEALTH AND SCIENCE UNIVERSITY)

Chemotherapy and other cancer treatments can eliminate sperm production, and an estimated 30 percent of male pediatric cancer survivors will be infertile. But a new study suggests that it might be possible to preserve a piece of a boy’s testicular tissue and later coax it to produce mature sperm. Researchers used a sample of immature testicular tissue from monkeys, and in one case, the sperm was used to start a pregnancy and led to the birth of a rhesus macaque named Grady. STAT’s Andrew Joseph has more on the technique here.