Oxidants, Antioxidants, and Impact of the Oxidative Status in Male Reproduction

Ralf Henkel, BEd, PhD, Habil., studied Biology and Chemistry at the University of Marburg, Germany, and obtained his PhD in 1990. Ralf continued his post-doctoral training and obtained his Habilitation at the University of Giessen, School of Medicine in 1998. From 1998 to 2004, he was an Assistant, Associate and Extraordinary Professor, at the Justus-Liebig University of Giessen, Germany, before he accepted a Full Professorship at the Department of Urology at the University of Jena, Germany. From 2005 to 2020, he was Professor and Head of Department at the Department of Medical Bioscience at the University of the Western Cape, Bellville, South Africa. He is also Honorary Professor at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Peru, and Editor-in-Chief of Andrologia. Ralf has published more than 140 original and review articles as well as 46 book chapters and supervised more than 70 Hons/MSc/MD/PhD postgraduate students’ theses. For his research, Ralf received 16 awards. Ralf has received 26 research grants for numerous research projects to investigate the impact of oxidative stress on sperm functions, DNA fragmentation and fertilization, as well as the effects of Herbal Medicine on male reproductive functions including prostate cancer and benign prostatic hyperplasia. Luna Samanta received her Ph.D. in 1999 from Utkal University, India. She first served as Assistant Professor in Biotechnology at Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, India and subsequently as Assistant Professor in Zoology and Biotechnology at Utkal University, India. Luna was appointed as an Associate Professor of Zoology at Ravenshaw University, India in 2010. In 2014 she was promoted as Professor and Head of Department of Zoology. Currently she is the Dean, School of Life Sciences at Ravenshaw University. Luna was a Commonwealth Academic Fellow at the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology, Imperial College London during 2012. She was also the recipient of Government of India’s Raman-Post-Doctoral Fellowship and had  worked as a visiting scientist at the American Center for Reproductive Medicine at Cleveland Clinic, USA. Luna is the recipient of several awards, such as the Young Scientist Award by Indian Science Congress Association, Young Scientist Award of Orissa Science Academy and KK Nair Prize for outstanding Research Publication by University of Kerala, India. She has published over 45 scientific papers and reviews in peer reviewed scientific journals, authored over 8 book chapters and edited 2 books. Luna is active in both teaching and research and to this date 5 Ph.D and 19 M. Phil students have been awarded their degrees under her supervision. Her current research interests are focused on identifying the biological markers of oxidative stress, DNA damage, apoptosis and autophagy using proteomic research tools and bioinformatics analysis as well as environmental impact assessment using redox markers with particular reference to male reproductive functions. Luna is actively involved in laboratory and clinical studies assessing the efficacy of certain antioxidants. Ashok Agarwal, PhD, HCLD (ABB), ELD (ACE) is the Head of Andrology Center and Director of Research at the American Center for Reproductive Medicine since 1993. He holds these positions at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, where he is Professor of Surgery (Urology) at the Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University. Ashok was trained in Male Infertility and Andrology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School and later worked as Assistant Professor of Urology at Harvard from 1988 to 1992. Ashok has over 28 years of experience in directing busy male infertility diagnostic facilities and fertility preservation services. He is very well published with over 735 scientific papers and reviews in peer-reviewed scientific journals and is ranked in Scopus as the #1 author in the world in the fields of Male Infertility/Andrology and Human Assisted Reproduction, based on the number of peer-reviewed publications, citation scores (Scopus: 32,432; Google Scholar: 69,225), and h-index (Scopus: 97; Google Scholar: 128). He is currently an editor of more than 40 medical text books/manuals related to male infertility, ART, fertility preservation, DNA damage, and antioxidants and active in basic and clinical research. His laboratory has trained over 1,000 scientists, clinicians, graduate, and undergraduate students from the United States and more than 55 countries. Ashok is the recipient of over 100 grants totaling over 15 million dollars. His current research interests include proteomics of male infertility and the molecular markers of oxidative stress and DNA integrity in the pathophysiology of male reproduction.

1. Basic Aspects 2. Clinical Aspects 3. Current approaches 4. Future developments 5. Conclusions