In a pursuit to dodge the side force of endocrine - base birth control , a team of scientists has started looking at a possible contraceptive that harnesses the ability of anti - sperm antibodies .
An former foray into this approximation was recently bring out in the journalScience Translational Medicine . A squad of biomedical scientists from a smorgasbord of institutions across the US organise spermatozoan - bind antibody that were based on a natural antibody against human sperm .
Some people can naturally create antibody against sperm cells whereby the immune system of rules mistakenly key sperm as a foreign invader in the body and set on it . It ’s very rare and can lead to a bunch of complications , but for the purposes of this experiment , they provide the ideal design . The researchers obtained these anti - sperm antibodies from the procreative tract of a act of women who experience sterility and engineered them by fusing on different number of extra antigen - binding fragment .
They found the strength and spermatozoan - tie down abilities of the anti - sperm antibodies had increased by at least 10 - fold by summate these additional antigen - binding fragments . Testing the antibody out on the vagina of a sheep , they were set up to quash the turn of mobile sperm by more than 99.9 pct compared to control grouping .
Hormone - based birth ascendance , like “ the pill , ” is wide used and very good , but they bring on an raiment ofundesirable side - effect , including nausea , bloating , mood changes , sick headache , and blood clotting . As many charge out , the risk of a severe blood clot is substantiallyhigher among multitude aim the pillthan any of the vaccine against COVID-19 .
The researchers point out a bit of limitations with the employment . For one , the study did n’t direct demonstrate whether the method could prevent pregnancies . This late research is still very much in its former day — giventhe grown handgrip upover the development of amale contraceptivepill , you should n’t expect this sort of technology on the shelf any clock time soon — but the squad skip they can pave the means towards a new alternative to conventional contraceptives . The study author write : “ Although test in humans are needed , these [ engineered antibody ] may declare oneself woman another choice to hormonal contraception . ”
This team is n’t the only chemical group looking towards antibody - based preventative . Just last month , another squad of US scientistsdemonstrated a novel prophylactic equipment methodthat used antibody to basically make sperm clump up , render it useless . This was only demonstrated in a lab and , once against , the research is only in its infancy , but it seem interesting things could be on the horizon .
