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During the millennium, it has found very effective ways to prevent people from having babies. The ancient Egyptians and Greeks used linen bags and animal bladders, the forerunners of modern latex condoms and diaphragms. We now have spermicides, sponges, intrauterine devices, pills, and implants to separate sperm and eggs. There is only one problem: people who want to avoid pregnancy do not always use contraceptives.
“The main fact here is that half of all pregnancies are unintended,” says Deborah Anderson, a professor at Boston University School of Medicine who specializes in obstetrics, gynecology and infectious diseases. “Although we have a very good method in hormonal contraception, it’s not as penetrating as we’d like.”
There are many reasons why some people may not want to use hormonal contraceptives: it requires a prescription, can cause unpleasant side effects, puts the role of contraceptives on women, and requires remembering a daily pill or taking a shot. having a more invasive procedure for implantation for three months or so. Other methods also have their drawbacks: some require partner permission, are easily forgotten, or misused at hot times or have a lower success rate.
So scientists have been working on a new method that would be easy, prudent and effective to use without changing women’s hormones. This strategy uses manufactured proteins called monoclonal antibodies to mimic the antibodies used by the immune system and attack the sperm before making an egg. Recent works – one published in Science in Translational Medicine another published in August and the year EBioMedicine in July, demonstrated that these antibodies can attach to sperm and turn into impotence. Other research has examined whether these antibodies can be used fight HIV or the virus that causes herpes, and whether they can be safely applied topical contraceptive or like an insertion like the vaginal ring.
“The timing is right,” says Anderson, co-author EBioMedicine paper, which showed that the manufactured antibodies were effective in binding to sperm.
Monoclonal antibodies are well known because they have recently received a lot of attention as a treatment Covid-19 fighting. Antibodies are proteins that the human immune system makes to fight infections. They bind to and neutralize specific areas of specific invaders, which in turn indicate that they are being attacked by the body and need to make more defensive agents. We were born with some of our antibodies. Others arise after undergoing a new germ and getting sick; think of the quick and strong immunity that comes from having chickenpox. And some are created after undergoing a vaccine that trains the body to attack certain invaders, without the misery of comfortable diseases.
And now, some are created in the lab. These are intended to be short-term defenders, not a permanent alteration of the immune system; like temporary bounces that can prevent unwanted guests — sperm — from entering the party.
Anderson envisions a vaginal film that can be purchased at the pharmacy without a prescription. Each film would last about a day. “I think it can be popular to use it from time to time for women who have sex,” she says. “They don’t want to be in something like the ongoing hormonal method. They’d like to use it only when they need a product.”
Some people naturally produce antibodies against sperm that do not kill the sperm, but entangle them by turning them into giant glands. When sperm cannot swim from an acidic and hostile environment in the vagina, they die. In the 1970s, scientists began trying to reproduce these antibodies in the laboratory. But “at the time, the ability to manufacture antibodies and deliver them in specific doses was not possible,” says Samuel Laik, director of the pharmacy engineering program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of the August paper. It was incredibly expensive to synthesize enough of them. “That’s why all the initial work was focused on a contraceptive vaccine,” he continues.
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