On Jan 25th, the pilot project of Dr. rer. nat. Christoph Brenker was accepted by the CRU326 Management Board. 

The outline of the project in short:

The fusion of mammalian oocytes with a sperm cell induces oocyte activation. This process is triggered by a soluble factor released from the sperm head into the oocyte's cytosol where it evokes oscillations of the intracellular Ca2+ concentration. In humans, male-factor infertility is commonly circumvented by ICSI. However, in 1-4% of the ICSI treatments the sperm-induced oocyte activation fails and the oocyte does not develop further. Recently, it was shown that ICSI failure is associated with aberrant function or expression the soluble sperm factor. However, the lack of a suitable test for its detection has, as yet, precluded systematic studies in sperm from patients with a history of ICSI failure. In this pilot project, we will develop an in vitro assay that allows assessing in a quantitative fashion the activity of the soluble factor in sperm form patients seeking for assisted reproduction. We want to investigate whether this assay can predict the capacity of sperm to fertilize the oocytes in IVF and/or ICSI.

Dr. Christoph Brenker is a research scientist at the Centre of Reprodctive Medicine and Clinical Andrology in the group of Prof. Timo Strünker. 

Please find the call for new pilot pojects here.