# Functional genomics and DEC-Tec to identify germ cell-specific contraceptives

> **NIH NIH P01** · BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE · 2020 · $1,234,662

## Abstract

SUMMARY OF P01 APPLICATION
The Strategic Plan 2000 of NICHD states that uncontrolled fertility “is one of the most pressing public health
challenges facing the world today,” and in 2014, NICHD identified contraception as one of the three priority
areas in implementing its scientific vision. Unintended pregnancies are a major health problem worldwide, and
in our country, 45% of pregnancies are unintended, 42% of these end in abortion, and the annual healthcare
costs are more than $7 billion. However, there is no oral contraceptive pill for men. Our multidisciplinary groups
at Baylor College of Medicine and Osaka University have joined forces for the intellectual, technical, and
pharmacologic challenge of defining germ cell-specific pathways essential for fertility and developing high-
quality preclinical compounds to target spermatogenesis, sperm maturation, motility, and/or fertilization as
effective non-hormonal contraceptives for men and women. Our Program Project Grant application describes a
new P01 program based on decades of scientific interactions and discoveries of our investigators. The
proposed male fertility-directed and contraceptive-directed studies will use state-of-the-art functional genomics
and drug discovery approaches to reach our goals. We propose three projects that focus on testis-specific,
epididymis-specific, and/or fertilization-specific targets for which optimal small-molecule ligands have yet to be
identified and for which mechanistic data are lacking. The proposal includes an Administrative Core that will
oversee the finances and stimulate scientific and translational advances of our team. Central to the projects
and our team goals of developing novel contraceptives is our DNA-Encoded Chemistry Technology (DEC-Tec)
Core that will 1) screen our candidate contraceptive targets against unique billion-compound libraries, 2)
produce lead compounds and probes for in vitro mechanistic studies and in vivo contraceptive testing in mice,
and 3) identify preclinical candidates for evaluation in clinical trials in men or women. The major innovative
aspects of this P01 proposal are 1) our collective application of CRISPR/Cas9 to expeditiously engineer the
mouse genome to interrogate male fertility pathways, and 2) our application of DEC-Tec to economically and
rapidly identify high-affinity probes and lead compounds to target our reproductive tract-required proteins for
evaluation of function and proof-of-concept contraceptive analysis in vivo. The primary objective of our P01
studies is to have multiple bioavailable, effective, and reversible contraceptives directed at novel reproductive
targets for testing in men or women within five years. This novel research program will support an
internationally-recognized team of scientists with complementary expertise in organic chemistry,
biochemistry, functional genomics, and reproductive biology, and has the potential of a huge
healthcare payoff by identifying key male fertility pathways...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9941089
- **Project number:** 5P01HD087157-04
- **Recipient organization:** BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
- **Principal Investigator:** MARTIN M. MATZUK
- **Activity code:** P01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $1,234,662
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-05-01 → 2022-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9941089

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9941089, Functional genomics and DEC-Tec to identify germ cell-specific contraceptives (5P01HD087157-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9941089. Licensed CC0.

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