left guys everywhere with two options to prevent pregnancy: use condoms or get a vasectomy. Now, however, researchers from the Baylor College of Medicine believe they’ve finally found the gene that will help scientists produce reliable birth control pills for men.
Their findings published in the journal Science reveal that the gene STK33 plays a key role in creating functional sperm. Knocking out that gene, at least temporarily, could keep fertile men from impregnating their partners in a similar way that female birth control has done for decades.
“Although researchers have been investigating several strategies to develop male contraceptives, we still do not have a birth control pill for men,” says corresponding author Dr. Martin Matzuk, the director of the Center for Drug Discovery and chair of the Department of Pathology and Immunology at Baylor, in a university release. “In this study we focused on a novel approach – identifying a small molecule that would inhibit serine/threonine kinase 33 (STK33), a protein that is specifically required for fertility in both men and mice.”
Using mice, the Baylor team was able to deactivate the STK33 gene, causing the creation of abnormal sperm and inducing poor sperm motility. Essentially, this left the mice sterile.
In men, scientists have found that having a mutation in this gene can cause infertility. However, a STK33 mutation does not cause any other side-effects, such as smaller than normal testis size. Simply put, a problem with STK33 doesn’t lead to visible symptoms like having smaller testicles.
“STK33 is therefore considered a viable target with minimal safety concerns for contraception in men,” adds Matzuk, who has been on faculty at Baylor for 30 years and is Baylor’s Stuart A. Wallace Chair and Robert L. Moody, Sr. Chair of Pathology and Immunology. “STK33 inhibitors have been described but none are STK33-specific or potent for chemically disrupting STK33 function in living organisms.”
Source : https://studyfinds.org/birth-control-for-men-condoms/
