Small things, big impacts

Antibodies hold great promise in therapeutics and diagnostics. However, nature designed them to target biomolecules on the outer cell but many relevant targets reside inside the cells. Therefore, scientists developed intrabodies, specialized antibodies with enhanced stability inside the cells. Inspired by Shelley’s Frankenstein, researchers developed the Frankenbodies, intrabodies with improved intracellular expression and stability. Join me for a scary talk on the creation of a new Frankenbody that targets a specific nucleic acid structure instead of a protein.

Did you know chilled koala sperm can survive more than 42 days? And echidna sperm forms super-bundles of over 100 cells? These unique feats underscore the remarkable diversity in sperm biology. This is highlighted by how dramatically different sperm cells look across the animal kingdom, think dolphins, crocodiles, echidnas, and even koalas, yet they all share the same fundamental job, delivering the male genetic cargo to the egg. We have sought to explore this better through a multi-species assessment, analysing the protein content of mature sperm cells from >12 vertebrates, including iconic Australians like the koala and echidna, uncovering a shared set of critical proteins driving sperm movement, energy production, and egg binding.

Whilst there are these species-specific traits, our work is revealing a core blueprint for what makes a sperm cell successful. Koala sperm, for instance, provides vital clues about how common molecular pathways give rise to healthy, motile sperm in everything from marsupials to mammals, to even those living in the water. Through advanced technologies, we are showing how these surprisingly conserved proteins might hold the key to diagnosing infertility, contraceptive development, improving assisted reproduction techniques, and ensuring that not only our own species, but many others, can continue to thrive. The lesson? Even an animal as distinct as the koala can help us better understand our own fertility and one day spur new treatments for those in need.