A new contraceptive gel or a pill that could be used by men or women, which blocks a sperm’s “CatSper” – calcium ions found only in the tails of sperm that are activated as the sperm gets closer to the egg, giving it the extra boost it needs to get to the egg – are being developed by David Clapham, of Children’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and his team. The work is of interest to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is funding the research in conjunction with the National Institutes of Health. The Foundation is looking for new contraceptive technologies that work well in developing-world settings. Clapham and his team are looking for compounds that might plug CatSper up, depriving the sperm of that last-minute energy boost. Compounds that work would be loaded into nanoparticles, which would be coated with antibodies that are attracted to specific sperm “recognition” proteins, guiding them to their target. The nanoparticles would be like smart bombs to the sperm “missiles”. Says Clapham: “Twenty million of these missiles are released at once, and you have to get all of them before they make it to the target. It’s an anti-missile device that doesn’t cause any collateral damage.” The team has 18 months to continue screening compounds and develop an initial prototype, after which they can apply for up to US$1 million from the Gates Foundation to test the contraceptive in animal models. The article can be viewed online at the link below.
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