大象传媒

So far, 50 Covid-19 patients between 30 and 40 have delivered a sperm sample. Students are next in line. The plan is that participants will return after 12 months for more testing.

The project aims to see how the infection affects the development of the immune system and, follow-up studies will reveal how Covid-19 will affect the immune system of their future children.聽

鈥淭he immune system is trained by infections of all kinds. We want to study how it is affected by Covid-19 and also if the infection has implication for future generation麓s immune systems. That is why we decided to study sperm in addition to whole blood鈥�, says Professor Cecilie Svanes, at Centre for International Health, Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care,聽University of Bergen.聽

This is the first study of its kind on human beings. The Covid-19 pandemic gives researchers a new and unique opportunity to study immune-training and how the infection may have effect on the next generation. Svanes is leading the study together with Professor Rebecca Cox at , University of Bergen.聽

Infections train the immune system

All kinds of infections stimulate reactions in our immune system. The researchers want to find out if Covid-19 trains the immune system in a good or bad way.聽

鈥淧revious testing on animals have shown that infections can affect a future generation麓s immune system in both a negative and a positive way,鈥� Svanes says.聽

Infections by micro-worms, so-called helminths, were found to have a positive effect on the immune system聽聽among mouse offspring. Sepsis, on the other hand, had a negative effect on the next generation of mice.聽

The researchers in the study believe the link between infection, sperm and offspring is the result of epigenetic changes, affecting how the hereditary material is 鈥渞ead and understood鈥� and how the body sbuilds the proteins involved in the immune system. The researchers are studying the messenger-RNA, which translates the DNA to proteins.聽

鈥淚f one compares the hereditary material with a cookbook, the epigenetics is about which of the recipes are to be read. We believe that an infection can affect this process鈥�, Svanes explains.聽

Should maybe wait to have children

The researchers cannot wait for the covid-19 patients to have children, so that they can study any effects of the father鈥檚 infection on the offspring鈥檚 immune response. They study and compare sperm and blood from the patients with that taken from a large control group without Covid-19.聽

The control group are participants in the large European -study, where the participants from seven different countries have been followed over 20 years. The database contains information on how lung health, asthma, allergies and associated diseases have developed over time.

鈥淚f we find considerable negative changes in sperm, there is a possibility that we will advise people to wait with having children, for, for example, one year after a Covid-19 infection,鈥� says Cecilie Svanes.聽