I am aware this is a rather odd question but I couldn’t find any answers to this in the literature. One study has used sperm cells as a drug delivery tool (see below) but I was wondering if it might have broader implications. Would sperm injected into the bloodstream survive for long? What about if it was taken orally? Would appreciate any thoughts!
Article Sperm-Hybrid Micromotor for Targeted Drug Delivery
Sperm is typically prevented from exposure to blood - because even a male's own sperm is seen by their immune system as "foreign", leading to the formation of anti-sperm antibodies. This can be a problem in clinical situations such as after testicular trauma, leading to infertility.
As such, I dont think sperm delivery into the bloodstream is practical and although I dont have any specific data on it, I believe the survival of sperm in the blood stream would not be very long. The article you have linked to seems to be suggesting the utility of a sperm delivery system for anti-tumour therapy into the female genital tract (in the lumen, not via the bloodstream) to treat malignancies like endometrial cancer. I couldnt access the full text, so not sure how rigiriusly they have tested this - certainly sounds like an interesting idea!
Shomik Sengupta thank you for your response. I am surprised that even ones own sperm would be recognised as foreign!
Do you think it would be dangerous to test this (due to the formation of anti-sperm antibodies)?
I would be interested to find out what data exists for this - I am sure you would not get ethics approval to do it in humans, but maybe interesting to undertake animal studies!
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