LA BioMed investigator Dr. Christina Wang spearheads study on new male contraceptive gel
2012-06-29
(Press-News.org) Christina Wang, M.D., lead investigator at Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute (LA BioMed) – one of the leading biomedical research institutes in the country – recently completed a study utilizing a new contraceptive gel that has the potential to be developed as a user controlled chemical birth control agent for males. The gel, which contains testosterone and a synthetic progestin called Nestorone, sharply lowers sperm counts in men with few side effects. The study conducted at LA BioMed and the University of Washington is funded by the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).
Dr. Wang and her team, along with the team at the University of Washington, enrolled 99 men in a preliminary study of the drug combination. One third of them received a gel containing testosterone and a placebo, which was applied for six months. The remaining two thirds received a gel containing testosterone and one of the two concentrations of Nestorone. Fifty-six men completed at least 20 weeks of the study and adhered to the protocol.
The results of the study were reported at the recent Endocrine Society Meeting & Expo in Houston. Of the men receiving the drug combination, 88 to 89 percent achieved a sperm concentration of less than 1 million sperm per milliliter, while those receiving testosterone and the placebo achieved the same low sperm concentration in 23 percent of men. Depending on the dosage, there was a complete absence of sperm in 78 and 69 percent of the men receiving the drug combination, and in 23 percent of the men receiving testosterone and the placebo.
"Up until now, the responsibility for contraception has traditionally always been with the female," said Dr. Wang. "With these new contraceptive methods for males, the responsibility will be shared. While this gel has great potential and minimal side effects, it does warrant further study as a male contraceptive."
Dr. Wang is a renowned andrologist/endocrinologist and a world leader in efforts to develop a safe, effective and reversible hormonal male contraceptive. In addition to this study, she is also working on a Phase I single dose and multiple dose study that tests the safety and tolerability of a new androgen dimethandrolone undecanoate that is being developed as a potential male contraceptive agent by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
###
About LA BioMed
Founded in 1952, LA BioMed is one of the country's leading nonprofit independent biomedical research institutes. It has approximately 100 principal researchers conducting studies into improved treatments and cures for cancer, inherited diseases, infectious diseases, illnesses caused by environmental factors and more. It also educates young scientists and provides community services, including prenatal counseling and childhood nutrition programs. LA BioMed is academically affiliated with the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and located on the campus of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. For more information, please visit www.LABioMed.org
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2012-06-29
Johns Hopkins researchers, working with an international consortium, say they have generated stem cells from skin cells from a person with a severe, early-onset form of Huntington's disease (HD), and turned them into neurons that degenerate just like those affected by the fatal inherited disorder.
By creating "HD in a dish," the researchers say they have taken a major step forward in efforts to better understand what disables and kills the cells in people with HD, and to test the effects of potential drug therapies on cells that are otherwise locked deep in the brain.
Although ...
2012-06-29
The visual information from eyes is sent into the brain unconsciously even if you are not aware. One of examples of unconscious seeing is a phenomenon of "blindsight" [Subjects have no awareness, but their brains can see ] in subjects with visual impairment, caused by the damage of a part of the brain called the visual cortex. Although it is already reported that the patients with damage in the visual cortex, who were not aware of seeing, can walk and avoid obstacles, it was not proved whether this was really blindsight. In this new study, the international collaborative ...
2012-06-29
Not lying is regarded as a learned and well-known rule of honesty among 14 and 15-year-olds at Zurich's high schools. Additional theoretical moral knowledge also includes conventional rules of honesty such as not using unfair aids during school tests or forging parents' signatures. What might seem like a duty to live up to school expectations at face value is actually a very different story beneath the surface. After all, dishonest practices are permitted for young people in certain classroom situations and with individual teachers. "In such cases, young people deem it ...
2012-06-29
The journal Nature has published a study analysing the lines of arrested growth (LAG) in the bones of around a hundred ruminants, representative of the specific and ecological diversity of that group of mammals. The results show that the presence of these lines is not an indicator of an ectothermic physiology (does not generate internal heat), as had previously been thought, since all warm-blooded mammals have them. The study therefore dismantles the key argument of the hypothesis that dinosaurs could have been cold-blooded reptiles. The work was carried out by researchers ...
2012-06-29
A characteristic feature of most animals is their ability to move quickly with the help of their musculature. Animals that can move are able to flee, hunt for prey, travel long distances or conquer new habitats. The evolution of muscles was thus a fundamental step during animal evolution. While the structure and function of muscles, especially of vertebrates, have been intensively studied, the evolutionary origin of smooth and striated muscles has so far been enigmatic. Comparative genome and gene expression studies, performed by researchers Patrick Steinmetz, Johanna Kraus ...
2012-06-29
Genetic diversity arises through the interplay of mutation, selection and genetic drift. In most scientific models, mutants have a fitness value which remains constant throughout. Based on this value, they compete with other types in the population and either die out or become established. However, evolutionary game theory considers constant fitness values to be a special case. It holds that the fitness of a mutation also depends on the frequency of the mutation. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön and the University of British Columbia ...
2012-06-29
RUB biologists have deliberately transformed stem cells from the spinal cord of mice into immature nerve cells. This was achieved by changing the cellular environment, known as the extracellular matrix, using the substance sodium chlorate. Via sugar side chains, the extracellular matrix determines which cell type a stem cell can generate. "Influencing precursor cells pharmacologically so that they transform into a particular type of cell can help in cell replacement therapies in future" says Prof. Dr. Stefan Wiese, head of the Molecular Cell Biology work group. "Therapies, ...
2012-06-29
Scientists at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research at the University of Copenhagen have used a new method to assemble a massive catalogue of data on proteins. This gives them unprecedented insight into a process called protein phosphorylation. The research was recently published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.
Postdoc Alicia Lundby, from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research, says: "Phosphorylation changes are really important to our understanding of cancer and other diseases. Although the study of phosphorylation ...
2012-06-29
Over the last decade, an average of 60,000 km2 of the Baltic Sea bottom has suffered from hypoxia without enough oxygen to support its normal ecosystem. Several large-scale geo-engineering interventions are currently on the table as proposed solutions to this problem. Researchers from Lund University are calling for geo-engineering efforts that mix oxygen into the Deep Baltic to be abandoned.
In the June 28 edition of Nature, researchers warn of the unforeseen effects of geo-engineering to relieve the lack of oxygen in bottom waters. "Such radical remediation measures ...
2012-06-29
Research carried out at the University of Southampton has concluded that participants in drug trials should be better informed about the potential significant benefits and possible side-effects of placebos.
Placebos are traditionally thought of as 'inert' pills, given in trials to act as a yardstick or constant by which to measure the effects of new 'active' drugs, known in clinical trials as the 'target treatment'. However, placebos themselves have been shown to create substantial health changes in patients.
"We believe the health changes associated with placebos ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] LA BioMed investigator Dr. Christina Wang spearheads study on new male contraceptive gel
