The world’s population is expanding while resources are growing scarcer, but as of yet there is no birth control for men aside from condoms or vasectomies. Instead, women are left to grapple with the delights of playing side-effect roulette with hormonal contraceptives or IUDs, even though men are fertile around the clock while women are only fertile for about a week a month.
However, there may be hope for more gender parity in the future. Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine just published a study in Science showing preliminary success with a nonhormonal and reversible birth control in male mice.
Men and male mice who have mutations in a protein called STK33 are sterile. The researchers synthesized several different compounds, which would bind with STK33 and inhibit it. Of the several they tested, one called CDD-2807 was the most effective.
Next, they injected male mice with different doses of CDD-2807 for three weeks, and then housed them with female mice. The researchers found that mice treated with CDD-2807 had lower fertility than mice who hadn’t been treated, and mice who’d received higher doses were less fertile.
Once the mice stopped receiving CDD-2807, they recovered their fertility. In addition, the mice did not seem to suffer from any adverse side effects.
“We were pleased to see that the mice did not show signs of toxicity from CDD-2807 treatment, that the compound did not accumulate in the brain, and that the treatment did not alter testis size, similar to the Stk33 knockout mice and the men with the STK33 mutation,” Dr. Courtney Sutton, a postdoctoral fellow at Baylor and one of the study’s authors, commented.
Going forward, the researchers plan to continue investigating CDD-2807’s potential as a birth control as well as other substances the may have the same impact.