A new gene discovery could mean birth control for men! Click below to read the full story.
Contraception should be achieved because of effort on both the lady’s and dude’s parts, not just one or the other — that just isn’t fair!
So when we hear that a new gene discovery in Edinburgh might just lead to a form of birth control for men, this makes a LOT of people excited!
They discovered that a gene that is essential for the development of sperm — called Katniss1 Katnal1. If you block it, it temporarily stops sperm production!
The team then found out that Katnal1 was used to regulate a structure known as microtubules – parts of sperms that needed for support and the acquisition of nutrients.
Basically, those little swimmers can’t move through the balls to finish maturation.
This finding is double awesome, too, when you realize that not only could this lead to a pill… but possible solutions for male infertility!
One researcher says:
“As we move towards personalized medicine, comparing DNA sequences of infertile men against gene data provided from studies such as this will help clinicians identify the causes underlying unexplained male infertility. If a genetic fault can be traced to a problem within the supporting cells of the testes rather than the sperm cells then it could be possible to use a gene-therapy approach to replace the faulty copy of the gene and restore fertility.â€
This is still a ways away, but we’re excited about the possibilities, none the less!
