Fertility is one of the topics which has had a huge amount of dogma attached to it. The subject suffers a lot of misconceptions and myths which in turn has led to the poor health of the male and female bodies. To break this stigma, scientists thought that breaking the fourth wall between scientific studies and sexually active people is necessary.
A couple of decades ago, Jonathan Tilly, a professor at Northeastern University and a Reproductive Biologist, made a discovery that challenged everything scientists thought they knew about female reproduction. For centuries on, people had believed that mammals were born with a set number of egg-producing follicles in their ovaries. Whereas, most male mammals continue to generate new sperm cells that allow them to reproduce throughout their adult life. The findings suggested that first of all, males can produce new sperms at any time which is true for all of the species. And secondly, female flies, fish, and birds can make new eggs during or before the time of ovulation. This defied any previous knowledge on the subject and opened new gateways for effective surgeries and medical operations to work.
This discovery made its way only when scientists figured out that there was an unequal number of stem cells in the ovaries which suggested a difference in the number of eggs produced. First carrying out the test on mice, as their ovaries contained the same number of stem cells, Tilly confirmed this theory with the results. Later, his analysis was proven to hold true for humans as well.
Along with this, their studies also provided an insight into menopause and the menstrual cycle. They discovered that as mice age, their bodies slowly turn the upper spigot off. The ovarian stem cells are still present in the body, but they stop functioning. As a result, the ovaries stop producing new eggs. Once all the eggs are depleted, the ovaries eventually fail. When asked about the prospective future in the science of fertility, Tilly said, “We’re not there yet, but we’re working day and night to make it happen.”
As infertility is still a relatively untapped subject because of the stigma attached to it, this discovery has led to a lot of myths and misconceptions being uncovered. The studies are thought to help a lot in the further development in the field including the reproductive health, the health of the newborn, and even more about the menstrual cycle.
Devika Mulye
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