Potential anti-cancer drug doesn't fight cancer, but fights sperm production instead
When scientist began testing the JQ1 compound, they hoped that it would be effective in cancer therapies by causing tumor cells to reboot, and halt their harmful effects on the body. Unfortunately, the drug
doesn't appear to work against cancer in the way that researchers had
thought it would. However, JQ1 may end up being an extremely important
discovery after all: It turns out that although it can't fight cancer,
it does fight sperm production, making it a potential key to the production of the first male birth control pill.
Administering the compound to
male mice caused each test subject's sperm production to drop
dramatically. The sperm that were still being created were of poor
quality, rendering the animals infertile. Most importantly, once testing
of the compound ceased, sperm production returned to normal, showing
that the effects of the pill are 100% reversible.
While the results may be
promising, clinical trials are still needed in order to prove the drug's
effectiveness against human sperm. The compound still needs to be
tweaked in order for it to become a candidate for oral administration,
but so far the outlook is good.
Of course, this isn't the first
time a drug has been found to be ineffective for its promised purpose,
and then discovered to be a suitable solution to a different medical
condition. Sildenafil
— known more commonly by the trade name Viagra — was first tested in
treating symptoms of heart disease. The clinical trials showed that
while Sildenafil's effectiveness against heart disease was minimal, the
men who tested it were affected in an entirely different way.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Don't Troll, if you can't add anything helpful, don't post.