The Egg Man Iversity Press

16 PITTMED FEATURE THE CRAFT OF ART | BY LEAH KAUFFMAN THE EGG MAN IVERSITY PRESS. RIGHT: REPRINTED OXFORD UN 2000 hile eating out, 3-year-old Gerald Schatten excused himself from his family’s company. Peering . COPYRIGHT over the edge of a neighboring table, perhaps 26-33 pulling himself up on his tiptoes, little Gerald Delving into cloning, questioning examined his fellow diner’s lobster, then—for the benefit of any popular fertility treatments, experi- W menting with embryonic stem cells, kindred amateur naturalists within earshot who shared his passion— AMERICANTHE FOR ADVANCEMENT ASSOCIATION OF SCIENCE. HTTP://WWW.SCIENCEMAG.ORG there’s little Gerald Schatten’s group pronounced its sex. But lobsters were just a warm-up: Throughout his 2001 does that isn’t newsworthy. And the fact that his researchers work with school years, Schatten brought home scores of wildlife specimens our close cousins, monkeys, makes . COPYRIGHT found along New York’s East River to identify with the help of sci- 2 their efforts particularly relevant to , FIG. human health. ABOVE: ANDi (back- entific texts. He credits his forays along that waterway, set among one wards acronym for inverted DNA) 291, 309 of the world’s highest population densities, for giving him a precursor as a baby. ANDi is the world’s first transgenic primate, and techniques course in biology. used to birth him from a petri dish It’s no wonder then that when Schatten went to the University of may offer ways to create genetic disease models in primates. California, Berkeley, he majored in zoology. A doctorate in cell biology LEFT: A rhesus monkey (not ANDi) at followed. He started with the study of sea urchin development and the four-cell stage. A gene that NTED WITH PERMISSIONNTED FROM CHAN ET AL., MOLECULAR HUMAN REPRODUCTION, 6, PP. VOL. RI makes a jellyfish glow was inserted REP : into the DNA, illuminating one of the FT ITH PERMISSION FROM CHAN ET AL., SCIENCE LE W very early monkey cells. OCTOBER 17 progressed through the phyla: By Among those making things happen at the the 1990s, Schatten was working Pittsburgh Development Center: (from left) with mice, cows, and pigs, investi- director Gerald Schatten, veterinarian Buddy gating the molecular biology of the earliest embryos. With a dearth of such investigations, Capuano, behaviorist Gerald Ruppenthal, and stages of fertilization and development. In patients may undergo infertility treatments researchers Laura Hewitson and Christopher Navara. the mid 1990s, seeking an organism that without a clear picture of the risks to them, or provides an even more accurate reflection of to their child. placement of the ICSI needle is not fixed as once human fertilization, Schatten began working And there may indeed be risks. Evidence thought. The technique of sperm injection, then, with monkeys. Along the way his labs have suggests that intracytoplasmic sperm injection might cause chromatin damage. (Though it’s a been astonishingly productive in the field of (ICSI), a popular treatment for male infertility, “big leap” to infer chromosomal damage from reproduction, helping science answer befud- may increase the likelihood of abnormal that stage, Hewitson cautions.) dling cellular biology puzzles, like why development, including chromosomal abnor- Since ICSI has been practiced in humans for mammals seem to inherit mitochondria only malities, in the resulting children. a decade, there are plenty of ICSI children to from their mothers. When a man produces too few sperm for study. Yet it may not be possible to detect subtle Last year, he joined the faculty at the normal conception, a couple might consider chromosomal abnormalities in kids so young, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. ICSI. The therapy involves using a miniatur- before their reproductive years. And it’s notori- As director of the year-old Pittsburgh ized hydraulic apparatus to steady an egg ously difficult to determine the causes of any Development Center (PDC) at the Magee- while a sperm is drawn into a very fine needle, developmental delays in an uncontrolled setting. Womens Research Institute and a professor and tail first. The needle then pierces the egg, Are they genetic? Related to something in the a vice chair in the Departments of Obstetrics, depositing the sperm within. This often environment? A result of the same thing that Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences as well results in an embryo and then a baby, but caused the father’s infertility? as Cell Biology and Physiology for the School of Schatten’s group is concerned that some of the Because we share so much of our genetic Medicine, Schatten continues the work he’s long molecular changes that take place during makeup with monkeys, what Schatten and his done on assisted reproduction technologies, the field known as ART. In recent years, Schatten’s . a popular treatment for male infertility may increase group has added cloning and transgenics to their repertoire, too. One of their findings may the likelihood of abnormal development. even end our national debate about the use of human embryonic stem cells for research and spontaneous conception are bypassed during colleagues at PDC learn from studying fertility therapies. (Expect more on the embryonic front. ICSI, with uncertain results. For example, a treatments in them can likely tell us what happens As we went to press, we learned that the PDC sperm contains a protein collar that is shed as when we undergo the same procedures, giving us had just received a shipment of human embry- it enters the egg during spontaneous concep- a more accurate calculation of the risks. Likewise onic stem cells from the National Institutes of tion. Associate professor Laura Hewitson, who if their research determines that the risks are small, Health’s tightly controlled registry.) has collaborated with Schatten for the better Schatten’s group will be able to reassure clinicians part of a decade, helped show that during ICSI and patients. he treatment of infertility is consid- this collar is retained, cinching up the area The continuation of the ART research depends ered elective by most American where the sperm’s X or Y chromosomes are upon healthy monkeys and their offspring, so the T insurance companies. Since these contained, like a belt around a beach ball. This animals are never sacrificed for research purposes. treatments aren’t covered by insurance, panels may prevent the sperm from integrating with And the PDC opts for minimally invasive proce- of doctors for insurance companies don’t rule the egg’s genetic contribution. Another con- dures in its studies. In fact, while most embryo on which procedures are reasonable. The cern is that the mechanical manipulation of transfers into monkeys are done with minor National Institutes of Health and other gov- egg and sperm might cause damage. Hewitson surgery, Schatten’s group, led by veterinarian ernment agencies sponsor few clinical studies discovered that in primate eggs, a structural Buddy Capuano, is working to perfect the use of of ART and limited research involving human landmark used by clinicians to guide the safe a laparoscope instead. (In humans, the procedure 18 PITTMED Massimo Trucco, Steven DeKosky, Ronald Herberman, David Perlmutter, and Thomas Starzl at Pitt—to name a few. Tell him about a neat project going on up the hill, and he thinks of another potential collaboration. Inspiration is everywhere. n 1998, inspiration came not from the East River but from the Atlantic waters off Isouthern Massachusetts. Schatten had cofounded the six-week long program, Frontiers in Reproduction, at Woods Hole’s Marine Biological Laboratory, meant to give physicians and researchers the most current, us. Ruppenthal imitates their enthusiasm for a complete picture of the field. Staffed with favorite caretaker by pounding his fist to his instructors from all over the world, the pro- chest and leaning forward abruptly, a monkey gram is an extremely intensive summer camp is typically done through the cervix, which is too ready to leap into the handler’s arms. His for young MDs and PhDs. Sometimes they difficult to navigate in rhesus monkeys.) The widened eyes are the same cornflower blue as don’t leave the lab until the wee hours of the small incision required can be covered with a his broadcloth shirt. morning, they’re so excited to be introduced Band-Aid. Under the microscope, the PDC team Schatten is a considerable source of wattage to another technique or organism. Sometimes, studies what happens to egg and sperm just after himself. One day, setting up his laptop to they change career paths when they get home. conception. Then, using newer, more powerful display pictures of embryos and explain ART, Sometimes, even a faculty member is spurred imaging techniques, they track the development he moves around his small, temporary office to embark in a new direction. Exposed to an of a fetus in utero. Later, with the help of non- with hummingbird rapidity. (Next year, the overview of molecular medicine that he would human primate behavior expert Gerald PDC will get a new facility.) It’s just as one not have been otherwise, Schatten realized at Ruppenthal, the monkey offspring are closely Pitt administrator told Schatten it would be Woods Hole that his group’s work could help observed and assessed with a degree of scrutiny when recruiting him: The Pittsburgh research bridge the gap between experimental mouse impossible in human subjects. community is a scientific theme park, and studies and human cures. Monkeys have With more than 40 years’ experience, Schatten is a kid with a ride-all-day, season- served as models for human infectious disease Ruppenthal is known the world over for his long pass. Already he has a roster of ongoing or for a half century or more (the polio vaccine work on monkey behavior, having edited an hoped-for collaborations, with Chien Ho and was tested in monkeys before it was used on influential text on nursery-rearing monkeys Eric Ahrens over at CMU (MRI imaging), and humans), but they haven’t yet been used as a (and he’s a coauthor on another, to be published next year).

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