Latest male contraceptive is stopping sperm in its tracks

Researchers at the University of Dundee have developed an unrivalled, fully automated robotic screening system which allows them to rapidly test the effect of drugs and other chemicals on human sperm. The research team at Dundee, led by Professor Chris Barratt and Dr Paul Andrews, are working towards finding a safe and effective male contraceptive. […]

Researchers at the University of Dundee have developed an unrivalled, fully automated robotic screening system which allows them to rapidly test the effect of drugs and other chemicals on human sperm.

The research team at Dundee, led by Professor Chris Barratt and Dr Paul Andrews, are working towards finding a safe and effective male contraceptive.

Results of their latest study, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, are published in the journal eLife.

One of the most critical functions for sperm is to move to the site of fertilisation and this paper reports the results of a systematic search for drugs that block sperm motility.

The Dundee team screened one of the world’s largest collections of previously approved and clinically tested drugs, around 13,000 in total. The researchers accessed this collection, the ReFRAME collection, through a collaboration with Calibr, part of the Scripps Research Institute, as a way to fast-track development of a safe and effective male contraceptive.

The outcome of the study shows that it is possible to find effective agents that halt the sperm in its tracks and further work will be done to investigate if any of these are suitable for long term use in the male.

Chris Barratt, Professor of Reproductive Medicine in the School of Medicine, said, “This is a breakthrough in technology for the area. It allows us for the first time to assess in large numbers how compounds can affect sperm function. Surprisingly there has been no effective, reversible and widely available form of contraception developed for the male since the condom and, as such, the burden falls largely to the female.

“Finding an effective male contraceptive would be a major step in addressing that inequality.”

There is an urgent need to develop new methods for male contraception; however, drug discovery efforts have been hampered for a variety of reasons.

First, the relatively poor understanding of human sperm biology,  secondly, the lack of studies that convincingly links a protein target in human sperm to the key functions that sperm must carry out after leaving the male, and thirdly the absence of an efficient system to screen the effects of the myriad chemicals and known drugs that are available.

Courtesy: eurekaalert