FERTILITY FACTOR
Health Sciences Center researchers have created a device that will help in the fertility process.
Written by Melody Ragland
The phenomenal changes in science and medicine have, in many instances, changed lives with breakthroughs in research, innovative treatments and enlightened health care providers. However, even the most prominent researchers and doctors know more work is to be done to advance health care.
For couples who are unsuccessful in trying to conceive, advancing infertility research is encouraging. Current infertility treatments for women can be invasive and painful. Treatments for men can be awkward and uncomfortable. At the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, researchers are creating ways to make something intimate and emotionally intense into a life-altering joy.
Commonly defined as unprotected sexual intercourse for a year without a pregnancy, infertility is a research priority for Kellie Flood-Shaffer, M.D., assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Health Sciences Center. The stereotypical thought regarding infertility is that the problem lies within the woman’s physiology. Flood-Shaffer says that women’s reproductive organs can be more easily damaged than men’s. About 40 percent of the time, however, infertility is due to a male factor, leaving 60 percent to women, but some couples may both have a factor that interferes with conception.
“Particularly in the United States, but certainly all around the world, pockets of the population are at high-risk for infertility,” she notes. “In the United States, the problem rests mostly with populations where women have contracted a sexually transmitted disease in the past or they have delayed childbearing for certain reasons.”
The physical causes for infertility in women include scarring on the cervix, uterus, or tubes; blocked tubes; and problems with ovulation or the menstrual cycle. Male organs are much more easily damaged by mumps, swelling of the testicles, or a varicose seal (a large varicose vein on the testicle), that all can cause a lower sperm count. For couples desperately trying to conceive, any additional help they can receive is a relief.
Dustie Johnson did not know what direction her thesis would take when she sat down to talk to Sam Prien, Ph.D., associate professor and director of the In Vitro Fertilization Labs and Resident Research in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. Prien also is an adjunct professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at Texas Tech University. During one of their conversations, Prien asked Johnson why semen samples were collected the way that they were. After researching the question, Johnson could not give him an answer. Neither Johnson nor Prien had any idea that the seemingly innocent question would lead them to this precise research, much less to the production of a device that is now in its final patent stages that will help with the problem of infertility.
Their question led to the development of the DISC (Device for Improving Semen Collection). Traditionally for both male humans and animals, semen is collected in a specimen cup that usually is made of cold, hard plastic. “We wondered why semen was collected that way, and we found that the reasons are that the process always has been done that way,” Johnson says. “Collecting in a cold, dry, plastic container defeats the purpose. Why subject the semen samples to that environment when that is not what the sperm are accustomed to?”
The DISC is unique in that the device is an insulated container that helps researchers and physicians to control the PH shift, osmotic shift and the temperature of the specimen, Johnson explains. “Using the DISC, we are able to funnel the ejaculate into a controlled volume.” Prien said the DISC was designed in a method that will help the sperm sample survive. “It’s a combination of basic physical and physiological factors providing the best environment for the sperm.”
The shape and volume of the disposable containers vary depending on the species using the DISC, Johnson comments, because different species produce different samples. For example, a horse collection can be about 50 milliliters, while a human sample is only five milliliters. “We’ve designed the DISC so that the devices are similar to what previously has been used for each species,” she says.
Johnson, who considers herself an applied scientist, enjoys doing research that has practical implications – so the DISC is an exciting career discovery and development. The device is both practical and has an immediate benefit. The effects of infertility research are significant for many different areas. Not only could this research have an impact on human couples trying to conceive, but also the work could have an outcome with positive economic benefits for producers in the animal industry.
Couples going through any number of infertility treatments are more than likely going to try an expensive procedure, such as in vitro fertilization or artificial insemination. According to Johnson, some in vitro fertilization procedures can cost $10,000 per procedure. “If you give couples even the slightest chance of improving the probability of conceiving, you are doing them a great favor,” she comments. “Infertility is an emotionally charged situation. Seeing a couple go through the process is distressing. But in seeing the results, you can have emotions from both ends of the spectrum. If the treatments do not work, the couple is devastated. If the procedures do work, the couple is ecstatic.” She notes that by maintaining a better sample when the male patient gives his semen, the DISC could save time, money, as well as mental stress for the couple. The DISC has not been used commercially at this point and has only served in a research capacity.
Johnson, who is married with two children, was pregnant with her son while she defended her master’s thesis and says the research really hit close to home for her.
Another positive attribute of the DISC is that when the device becomes available for human use, men will be able to collect the sample in their own homes.
In their research, Prien and Johnson used a canine model, which Prien describes as “serendipitous.” After receiving approval through the appropriate channels, the researchers worked with dog breeders who wanted to improve the likelihood of reproduction from their dogs. “It turns out that dogs have many of the same infertility problems as humans,” Prien explains. “Dog samples have a hard time surviving infertility processes, such as artificial insemination, so they made a good model because we have some dogs that handle the procedure very well and others who don’t tolerate it at all.”
The researchers found that by using the DISC, those canine semen samples were viable between 18 to 48 hours longer than those collected in a standard specimen cup. As the research progressed, the investigators were able to keep some samples alive in the laboratory for more than a month. Keeping human semen samples is a problem that many infertility researchers face, Prien says. “We basically have an hour’s time to get the sample prepared or it’s useless to us, for the most part. This factor could be extremely beneficial to couples who need to travel a great distance to get to their doctors. From the animal standpoint, infertility currently is treated by freezing sperm for transportation over great distances. According to Prien, freezing does not work with the sperm from a number of species because the technology is not as advanced as is needed.
“We do what is called ‘fresh extension’ of the sample, but the sample begins to degrade almost immediately. So by the end of 24 hours, definitely 48 hours in most species, the sample is inadequate,” Prien says. However, the DISC could help extend that window of opportunity for conception, he notes, saying that the effects could be felt strongly within the animal production industry, especially for cattle producers. For instance, a ‘hot bull’ (a bull everyone wants semen from) could produce 10 to 20 percent more ‘straws.’ A straw can sell for $50 to $100 and could increase the income for cattle producers, Prien says.
Johnson, who received her bachelor’s degree in animal science and her master’s, along with her future doctoral degree, in reproductive physiology, agrees that the canine model was a good one to use. She added that the model also works well for animals that are reproductively sound. “We got a much better sample and were able to get more out of that one ejaculate than we could have had we used the traditional techniques.”
Dustie Johnson, M.S., and Sam Prien, Ph.D., the director of the Invitro Fertilization Labs at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, have developed a simple concept known as the disc that will have incredible results for reproduction. Starting out in an animal science program, Johnson says that the applications for animal reproduction is near and dear to her heart, and that she is elated about the multiple applications for the DISC across species. She commutes to Lubbock from Midland, Texas, where she lives with her family and is also an adjunct professor at Midland College. “I enjoy teaching,” she says. “If you get all of this knowledge and don’t pass it on, what good does it do?”
Johnson presented her findings at the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, bringing an extremely positive response from the reproductive community. Clinicians from around the country have contacted her wanting to know when the DISC will be available for commercial use.
The DISC, Prien says, was a simple concept that will have incredible results. “We know the DISC is effective in a number of animal species, and we hope the device will produce the same promising results in humans.”
The dedicated researchers say they want nothing more than for their research to help couples have the child they long to have.
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