From the Editor

Excerpt

The August issue of JARG begins to highlight a level of throughput on two recurrent themes. The first of these has to do with the evaluation of gamete and embryo quality especially as it pertains to the increasing demand and useage of cryopreserved materials. While the momentum has shifted away from slow freeze protocols to those that employ the strategy of vitrification, questions remain as to the optimization of technologies for use in human ARTs given the widely divergent methods that we deploy in assessing both the viability and developmental capacities of gametes or embryos that have been subjected to cryopreservation. In what we anticipate to be an ongoing series of minireviews that will afford the JARG readership an opportunity to consider both the practical and foundational elements of this area, Zini and his colleagues offer an in depth look at the issue of DNA damage in sperm from a clinical perspective. The rudimentary elements of cellular toxicities as they are enacted within sperm during routine or storage conditions are considered and insights provided as to the direction of future studies to both improve as an overall goal, sperm quality but towards the more specific end, unravel both the appropriate collection of assays that are clinically tractable and those that provide a clearer picture as to the causes and consequences of DNA damage in the male germ line. That these are likely to be revealed as distinct lesions in DNA depending on the stage of spermatogenesis being targeted, the environmental life history of the patients, and the ways in which we handle sperm in aniticpation of ICSI or IVF will be worthy areas of future investigation that our colleagues will pursue with direction as indicated in this review. …