A team of researchers in Japan have discovered a technique where sperm can be segregated into the biological sex, that is, male and female for the first time. This technique can be applied to humans as it can have ‘disruptive social consequences.’
The researches have discovered that sperm carrying or an ‘X’ chromosome which creates a female child when it combines with ‘X’ chromosome of an egg, carries some chemical or molecules which can slows down its movement.
The male chromosome or the ‘Y’ chromosome of the sperm separates itself from the female chromosome or the ‘X’ chromosome when a chemical is pass through the sperm.
When this was tested in mice sperm, the result was that the fast sperms swimmers produced 90 percent, male kids. Whereas, the slow sperms swimmers produced 81 percent of female kids. This was tested when the sperms were added to IVF.
IVF stands for in vitro fertilization, which is a medical procedure for having babies or offsprings. The procedure involves surgery and medications(in the case of humans). It is a procedure where sperm is fertilized outside a body.
An experiment was carried out by Hiroshima University on this whose results are yet to be published. The result of the experiment was that the team had achieved 90 percent of the sex ratio.
The advantage of this technique is that it will help the farmers to produce desirable female dairy cattle and male beef cattle, which will help them in agriculture.
Dr. Masayunki said that this technique had been adopted for cattle and pigs through IVF and artificial insemination. Though this technique can be tried for human IVF, the ethics and method to perform this are yet to be discussed.
Though this is a useful technique, it is laborious, expensive and can even damage the sperm.