Scientists are close to creating male medicinal contraceptives

Perhaps, scientists will soon be able to get a medicinal contraceptive for men without hormonal side effects. This will be possible due to the fact that biologists have found and isolated a specific enzyme that is present only in sperm. Now scientists can test various options for drugs and find a suitable tool that reduces sperm motility.

“We have reached another milestone in obtaining and isolating a full-length enzyme kinase in an amount sufficient for medicinal experiments,” said researcher John Herr from the University of Virginia Medical School. “Isolation of the active, full-size form of this enzyme allows us to test drugs that attach to its entire surface, with the result that we will be able to identify inhibitors that have a selective effect on spermatozoa.”

An enzyme called TSSK2 appears to appear at the very last stages of sperm formation - this is very important, because the potential medicine targeted at it will have a minimum of side effects on other tissues of the body and organs, on molecules with similar properties.
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Drugs that attach to the surface of enzymes and suppress them are used in a wide range of therapeutic techniques, in particular, to combat leukemia. But in the field of contraception, this technique will be unique. So far there are no medical contraceptives of this type.

Hormonal contraceptives have so far been tested and used only in women. Various kinds of development of such agents for men, either interfering with the production of sperm , or lowering their activity , have been conducted for a long time and not very successfully. A common weak point of hormonal drugs are side effects on the body.

In addition to the use of condoms and surgical methods like vasectomy, you can also mention the actively researched method " reversible semen-controlled semen under the guidance " (in the USA known as Vasalgel ). In this case, a special polymer gel is injected into the vas deferens, which prevents the passage of spermatozoa. The method is actively developing and can reach the masses by 2018.