Sperm are not passive carriers of DNA. They deliver a payload of non-coding RNAs, epigenetic marks and molecular signals that program the embryo from the moment of fertilisation, shaping development and offspring health across a lifetime. My research asks how that payload is built, how it goes wrong, and what can be done about it once it has.
The biological question sits at the centre: those molecular signals are sensitive to a man's lifestyle and environment, and when oxidative stress in the testes rises, the instructions delivered to the embryo are altered. The result is impaired embryo development and offspring disease risk that can persist across generations.
That mechanism runs into several distinct streams of work. Clinically, it points toward sperm diagnostics that use molecular biology, not just cell counts and motility, to predict IVF outcomes. Commercially, it points toward selection technologies and consumer products designed to support conception outside the clinic. On the human side, it points toward the reality that men diagnosed with male-factor infertility are rarely offered psychosocial support, and toward building the care pathways that should exist instead.
The most unexpected stream removes gravity from the system altogether. Using a purpose-built dual-axis clinostat, we found that gravity is not incidental to fertilisation: sperm navigation and early embryo development change measurably as gravity is reduced. That result matters for spaceflight, but it also gives a new experimental lens on the same molecular mechanisms at work in an ordinary IVF laboratory.
Individually, these streams look like separate projects: molecular biology, clinical diagnostics, commercial translation, psychosocial care, and space biology. Together, they are one program built on a single premise: that a father's sperm carries far more information than medicine currently uses, and every one of those settings has something to teach the others.