The Immobilization of Male Sperm to Move during Pregnancy by Using an IUD-Injected Antiferromagnetic Compound
The drug was put into male mice and found that it immobilized sperm when delivered in this way, as injecting it before sex wasn’t an appealing idea. The method of birth control doesn’t contain hormones. The idea is that it could be taken shortly before sex, rather than daily. Christopher Lindsey is a program official at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which partly funded the work.
“We’ve found an on-switch that turns sperm on to move and we’ve developed a compound which blocks it.” says Jochen Buck, a co-author on the paper.
When it comes to preventing unwanted pregnancies, the work usually falls to women who use birth control pills, have an IUD implanted, wear vaginal rings, and take the morning-after pill.
Balbach presented the results to Buck and lab co-director Lonny Levin at a lab meeting the following week. They were stunning: After the male mice were injected with the compound, their sperm did not move.
“Lonny’s reaction was, ‘Wow! This means we could develop a male contraceptive,’” Buck recalls, “And my reaction was, ‘Lonny, it’s even better. We can have an on-demand male contraceptive.’”
There is hope that it will work in humans. “The prediction is, after half an hour or after five hours or after eight hours, [their] sperms do not move — and a day later, two days later, they are back to normal,” he says.
The demand for male contraceptives: From mice to humans, not only in mice but in humans: The case of hormonal pills, gels and injections
The demand for male contraceptives is there, Eisenberg says. There is a big need. A lot of young men are interested in having more options, according to surveys.
“It’s an open question how well this approach would translate from mice to humans,” he adds. “There are differences in the reproductive physiology between species, but it’s worth testing.”
Some other experimental concepts, like hormonal pills, gels and injections for men, can take weeks to start working. Some can cause mood changes, affect alcohol susceptibility, and shrink testicles. Since male contraceptives are geared towards healthy men, “the tolerance for side effects is going to be very, very low,” Eisenberg says, “[The gains] have to be pretty specific without many of these off-target effects.”
According to the researchers, the study subjects fared well. “Look, our mice would never have intercourse if they were in pain,” Buck says. He hopes the drug will be available eight years from now.
Is this realistic? Possibly. “The joke in the field is: a male contraceptive has been 5 to 10 years away for the last 40 years,” says Amory. “It’s always just around the corner.” He says that technology will continue to improve and eventually, society will get there.