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Science 28 March 2003:
Vol. 299. no. 5615, pp. 1993 - 1994
DOI: 10.1126/science.1083059
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Perspectives

DEVELOPMENT:
Smelling the Roses?

Donner F. Babcock

How is it that out of millions of sperm only one fertilizes an egg? In a Perspective, Babcock discusses what we know about sperm chemotaxis and introduces new work (Spehr et al.) that identifies a receptor expressed by human sperm that may be involved in chemotaxis toward the egg. The ligand that binds to this receptor (which has not yet been identified) may be the long sought attractant released by the egg that directs and guides sperm to the site of fertilization.

The author is in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA. E-mail: donner{at}u.washington.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)