Just Keep Swimming…
Sperm as drug delivery containers
In my post yesterday, I discussed how a uterus might be used as a personal incubator. In this post, I’ll talk about something disturbing for the opposite sex: willingly injecting sperm into your bloodstream.
Sperm (short for spermatozoon) form the half of an incredible fertilization system. They are small, on the order of 5 microns in size, with a long tail that enables powerful propulsion at a max rate of 3mm/min. They are incredibly alkaline which enables them to survive in the acidic vaginal environment for a period of up to five days. Sperm carry a haploid set of genetic data, a centriole, and perhaps oocyte activating factor and mRNA.
However, one of the more interesting part of sperm is in their navigation system. Sperm navigate to the egg through chemotaxis, a feedback loop of complex signaling chemicals that enable them locate their target.
What if we could tap into this targeting system and use it to target specific cells in the body? Sperm could be hollowed out and filled with drugs that would then be delivered exactly to the right place incredibly quickly. Some scientists have already begun experimenting with loading sperm with nanoparticles with no significant change to the functionality of sperm.
The chemotaxis system could be used to identify and locate cancer cells, delivering therapeutic drugs with high speed and efficiency. It could also specify which cells to target on the basis of signaling events from the target cell and receptor proteins in the head of the sperm. In addition, the use of sperm could limit immune response and allow drugs to stay in the body for only a few days with no residual effect.
So what do you think? Would you inject modified sperm in yourself to cure a disease? Let me know in the comments.
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