After receiving both funding from ASRM/Recurrent Pregnancy Loss Association and my BIG grant from the NIH, I have been busy hiring staff and working out the logistics of my study. FINALLY, I am pleased to annouce the SPERMRPL study is open for recruitment.

Just some background, male factor causes of recurrent pregnancy loss is very understudied and this is way this study exists. Most of the testing is on women but wait a minute, men have a role too. Men may have one blood test to check their chromosomes but that is it for standard diagnostic workup for men. With our study we want to understand the role of sperm in recurrent miscarriage.

Our recruitment goal is to recruit 480 couples over 4 years, we have 2 active recruitment centers UT Health Austin and UT San Antonio at present. We are onboarding Northwestern University and Yale Fertility centers soon. We are asking men to undergo a routine semen analysis and the sperm which is normally discarded will be frozen and testing on their sperm will be performed. Testing will include looking at DNA damage and changes in epigenetic signatures (changes outside DNA). Volunteers will need to fill out a short survey on their health. I include our flyer. I am so excited to get going on this research!!!!