Birmingham to establish leading facility to study potential non-hormonal contraceptives

Researchers from the University of Birmingham have received approximately £1.1M funding from the Gates Foundation to establish a specialised team that will assess new non-hormonal contraceptives, functioning as an independent advice and testing centre.

The Contraceptive Drug Accelerator (CoDA), was established by the Gates Foundation and includes multiple institutions collaboratively working on drug discovery efforts to develop female-controlled non-hormonal contraceptives.

This new funding has been awarded to set up a dedicated independent test centre at the University of Birmingham, the Independent Centre for Evaluating Nonhormonal Contraceptives (iCENC) to support specific CoDA projects working on nonhormonal contraceptives that target and inhibit sperm function in the female reproductive tract. The centre will provide a centralised standards laboratory for CoDA projects testing contraceptive effects of their lead compound(s) on sperm function.

Assessing sperm behaviour 

The methods of testing will include numerous ways of interrogating how sperm may behave in the female tract. These assessments include the Birmingham-developed FAST software, which investigates sperm motility, looking at how their tails beat in changing environments. Novel contraceptives may change the environment and/or their metabolism and signalling, affecting their swimming ability. A different method looks at stopping the acrosome reaction, a crucial event occurring at the egg surface, which enables the sperm to penetrate the egg.

The team have developed tests for evaluating a sperm’s ability to swim through mucus, and another investigating how sperm degrade within 24 hours with the effect of a contraceptive. Researchers will use a novel approach to these methods by testing them in more life-like environments that are similar to the female tract.

In addition to this work, Birmingham researchers will visit CoDA project teams internationally, providing expert advice to help standardise methods and testing. This will be carried out over a period of 18 months, visiting eight locations.

Dr Meurig Gallagher, Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Healthcare Science at the University of Birmingham, said: “From up to 100 million sperm in the ejaculate, only 10 – 100 sperm make it to the egg with the potential to fertilise. 

In Birmingham, we have a strong history of developing these sorts of tests, including our FAST software which integrates mathematics, artificial intelligence and reproductive biology to gain detailed insight into sperm capability.”

Professor Jackson Kirkman-Brown MBE, Director of the Centre for Human Reproductive Science (ChRS) at the University of Birmingham, said: “This investment highlights the Centre for Human Reproductive Science’s decades of experience in establishing how sperm function plays a role in fertilising potential.

We are excited to share our expertise across the global CoDA ecosystem, to ensure that methods and data are comparable and standardised across sites and strengthen the entire research pipeline."

Researchers hope the project will allow for true comparisons of impact on sperm function, due to standardised baselines and decision-making criteria. This will help make key strides in researching and developing non-hormonal contraceptives.