Contraception remains an unequal burden, and options for men are scarce: condoms or vasectomy. The new ContraPur consortium, which unites RWTH Aachen, LMU Munich and the universities of Bonn, Giessen and Münster, aims to change that with a non-hormonal, reversible contraceptive. The German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space is funding the three-year project with around three million euros.
The scientific target is purinergic signalling, the process that moves mature but immotile sperm through the testes. The molecule ATP, better known as the cell's energy currency, triggers contractions in peritubular cells surrounding the seminiferous tubules, and those contractions provide the transport. Blocking this machinery should render men temporarily infertile without touching hormone levels or causing permanent effects.
At LMU, the subproject led by Artur Mayerhofer of the Biomedical Center focuses on drug candidates, running proof-of-concept experiments on human peritubular cells to measure how strongly promising compounds suppress their contractility. If the approach holds up, it would mark a genuinely new mechanism in contraceptive research and a step towards family planning responsibilities that partners can share more evenly.