Millions of men across the globe who cannot father a child due to infertility can now have a hope of doing so.

Eggs can be fertilized by test-tube grown sperms that have been grown for the first time by scientists. This is being called as a breakthrough by experts because this can help many men to become fathers.

Researchers at Yokohama City University in Japan who used stem cells from mice and cultured sperm in the laboratory said, “The research is small but an important step towards curing male infertility.”

Young boys, who have been told that they can never become fathers when they grow up due to cancer treatments, can also hope to become fathers when they grow up.

Japanese team led by Dr Takehiko Ogawa nourished sperms for the research by adding the right kind of proteins to slivers of testicular tissue from mice that enables sperm production.

Through IVF techniques, sperms then fertilized eggs that made 12 baby mice take birth. Families were then reared by the pups, which were both male and female.

Ogawa and colleagues said, “The obtained sperm resulted in healthy and reproductively competent offspring.”