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Senior Scientist Profile Gary R. Hunnicutt joined the Population Council in 1996. He received his Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, and did a postdoctoral fellowship studying sperm development and fertilization at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington. Hunnicutt's research is funded by the National Institutes of Health, and his studies focus on several aspects of how sperm develop the ability to fertilize eggs. Although sperm are made in the testis, they leave the testis without the ability to swim or the capability to fertilize an egg. They develop these functions as they pass through the next organ, the epididymis. Hunnicutt's laboratory studies the molecular events in the epididymis that "turn on" sperm and make them functional. Understanding these events can then be used to help infertile men whose sperm do not activate to become functional as well as identify novel contraceptive targets that could "turn off" sperm in a rapid and reversible manner. The mechanisms of sperm activation also are similar to a chain of events that normal cells undergo when they are activated and transform into cancer cells; thus understanding how to modulate sperm activation may have much broader translational technology in combating diseases. Hunnicutt has also been involved in other male contraceptive studies within the Population Council, and has ongoing collaborations with The Rockefeller University, the Weill Cornell Medical Center, and the Sloan-Kettering Institute. Hunnicutt is affiliated with the Population Council's Reproductive Health program.
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