COULD zapping testicles with ultrasound provide a cheap, non-invasive alternative to vasectomy? It鈥檚 just one of 78 offbeat ideas that from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on 10 May.
The aim of the scheme is to encourage unconventional thinking to improve health in developing countries. Other ideas to receive funding include carnivorous plants that eat mosquitoes to combat malaria, and using a 鈥渟eek and destroy鈥� laser-based vaccine to fight the disease leishmaniasis.
The idea of using ultrasound as a contraceptive comes from and of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, who have shown it to work in rats. The animals stopped producing sperm following two ultrasound blasts, given 48 hours apart, and remained infertile for at least six weeks.
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鈥淢ale rats remained infertile for six weeks after two blasts of ultrasound, given 48 hours apart鈥�
Armed with their new funding, the researchers now intend to find out the mechanism by which sperm are destroyed 鈥� thought to be a combination of heating and shaking. 鈥淲e also need to know the minimum effective dose and track how long the effect persists,鈥� says Tsuruta.
鈥淭he idea in people is that the testes would be in a little cup of water, or another liquid that ultrasound can be transmitted through,鈥� Tsuruta says.
