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New reversible drug could become a male contraceptive pill
According to iAfrica.com, researchers in the United States reported that groundbreaking work with lab mice has boosted hopes for a male contraceptive pill. They said that a compound initially sketched as a candidate for blocking cancer has been found to stop sperm generation in mice. Once the drug was halted, the rodents recovered fertility and were able to sire perfectly healthy offspring.
Initially devised with the idea of disrupting a cancer-causing gene called BRD4, the new drug has also been found to inhibit proteins called bromodomains, one of which, BRDT, plays a key role in generating sperm in the testes. "If you stop the drug, there's complete reversibility," said Martin Matzuk, director of the Centre for Drug Discovery at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.
Currently, male contraception is limited to the condom or vasectomy, so an easy-to-use reversible option is badly needed, iAfrica.com reports.
Read the full article on http://lifestyle.iafrica.com.
