Searching for a male contraceptive is not easy, but researchers at the University of Dundee created an automated system to test the efficacy of drugs for stopping sperm. The focus of this project is human sperm, to know how well, the drugs suppress it.
This study is done by Chris Barratt and Dr. Paul Andrews, who are committing research on finding safer contraception that has no ill-effects on men, or a male contraceptive.
They checked the drugs that were approved and tested, it was 13,000 samples meant for male contraceptives. Going over this collection of drugs is a way to see how to develop the right male contraceptive.
Studies went over the best choices to use and stop sperm from swimming to the egg cell. Right after is the investigation on what works best for stopping sperm effectively.
Chris Barratt commented that having this technological breakthrough is crucial. Having the ability to test large batches of compounds that will restrict the swimming prowess of sperm to impregnate egg cells. Contraceptives for men is not worthwhile, and nothing has proven to work well so far.
Till this development, only the condom is the best way to ward off unwanted pregnancies. Most of the time, women need to carry the burden of contraception more than men. Developing a male contraceptive will equalize the burden and make it easier. Even if male contraceptives are needed for very urgent reasons, finding the right drug is where the roadblock is. Human sperm is not very understood and is not as well studied. Another is the lack of research to identify a protein in human sperm, which encodes all the functions it does when ejected from the male. Last is an effective system to see how chemicals affect it and drugs that are available.
Getting the answers will need a parallel testing method that is miniaturized carried out by AI. This is robotic AI will track and get images of fast-moving sperm. This tech is new and allows observation of sperm, how drugs affect the energetic sperm too by measuring.
This system bypasses the former way to test for contraceptives, which takes too much time. Developing the technology which is far better than previous ones, should be something that innovates how to check human sperm and drugs that inhibit it.
Everything from utilizing energetic human sperm and how they do their jobs or phenotype, how drugs and chemical compounds affect it. Those studying it seek a goal to find out what proteins are crucial to sperm to get an egg cell impregnated.
With the tech used to find the right drug to impede sperm, it has a function called acrosome reaction that checks on what aspect of the sperm fertilizes the egg. Overall, the system has better chances of devising a male contraceptive. Also, gives a chance to learn more about sperm too.
Developing this area of male contraceptive research will lessen unwanted pregnancies and abortions that happen just because it is unplanned. All these problems that put women's well-being in jeopardy are less when men get their own contraceptives.
Read: Stopping sperm in its tracks: latest progress in the hunt for a male contraceptive
