A collaborative team of reproductive scientists from the University of Birmingham, University of Münster, and University of Dundee has secured a $5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to advance global reproductive medicine. The project focuses on addressing male infertility and exploring new, non-hormonal contraceptive options for women.
The initiative aims to reduce gender inequality by developing innovative contraceptive solutions that offer women more autonomy over their reproductive health. By creating alternatives to hormonal contraception, the project seeks to improve health outcomes for women and girls, providing greater opportunities for education, career development, and personal freedom.
Currently, over 200 million women worldwide lack access to modern contraceptive methods. Researchers believe that targeting sperm may hold the key to solving this issue. However, after decades of focusing primarily on female reproductive health, there is a significant lack of tools to evaluate potential male contraception methods.
One of the project’s groundbreaking approaches involves the use of a newly developed software called ‘FAST’ to analyze sperm tail beat patterns. This tool, created at the University of Birmingham, will serve as a “fitness test” to assess sperm quality and functionality.
Dr. Meurig Gallagher, a co-researcher on the project from the University of Birmingham, noted, “The detailed analysis of sperm tail movements using FAST software could unlock new insights into sperm capability.”
The international team will assess sperm from 1,000 fertile men who have naturally fathered children, and compare it with sperm from 1,000 men experiencing unexplained infertility. This comparison will allow researchers to identify key functional differences in sperm that may contribute to infertility, which could also inform the development of female contraceptive methods.
Unexplained male infertility, affecting roughly a third of infertile men, is a condition where sperm appear normal in traditional semen analysis but still fail to fertilize an egg. This project will be the first to apply advanced sperm analysis on such a large scale, comparing fertile and infertile men with the most modern techniques.
Prof. Timo Strünker, from the University of Münster, emphasized the broader impact of the study, stating, “The insights gained from this research will not only help in the development of non-hormonal contraceptives for women but also improve early diagnostic methods for male infertility.”
With participant recruitment underway in the UK, Germany, and Switzerland, the team aims to create a comprehensive and diverse data set. The collaboration involves leading experts from multiple institutions, including Birmingham Women’s Hospital, the Centre for Human Reproductive Science, Ninewells Hospital, and the Centre of Reproductive Medicine and Andrology.
By studying the functional differences in sperm, the team hopes to develop drugs that could target sperm within the female reproductive tract, preventing fertilization without relying on hormonal methods. These advances could provide women with greater control over their reproductive health while addressing the global demand for safe, non-hormonal contraception.
This ambitious study is set to run for two years and is being led by Prof. Strünker, Prof. Sabine Kliesch, Dr. Christoph Brenker, and Prof. Frank Tüttelmann, with support from key researchers at the University of Birmingham and University of Dundee.
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