Hey guys! It’s Simran. If you’re new - welcome :) For the past few months, I’ve been working with my partner Diba to develop a non-hormonal, male contraceptive pill.
Lots has changed in the past 3 months. In the last update I wrote, Diba and I were shifting the focus of our project- from deep science to blockchain. We decided to build a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) dedicated to funding research for male contraceptives.
I think at that point, we felt like we had run out of scientific approaches to solve this problem. Dead ends, lack of data, and years worth of pre-requisite skills. We turned to a simpler way of making an impact. Rather than creating a drug ourselves, we would enable others to create it by providing grants.
I am so thankful to Brandon Jennings for telling us that this new approach was a cop- out. That no matter how hard it is, if we want to be in science, we should stay and try for a little longer. I remember being really frustrated. We had exhausted everything in my mind.
Turns out that re-ideation works, and staying a little longer is where the magic happens. Diba and I went back to the concept of drug repurposing, and this is where we are now.
Drug Repurposing to Inhibit RARα 👩🏽🔬👩🏻🔬
The protein target that we’ve chosen to work on is the retinoic acid receptor alpha, a nuclear receptor protein. RAR alpha binds retinoic acid, a form of vitamin A, that plays a super important role in cell growth and differentiation during spermatogenesis (process of sperm production) and embryonic development. The inhibition of RAR-alpha is hypothesized to have the effect of birth control.
For drug repurposing, we need to find FDA approved drugs that can inhibit RAR alpha. We’re doing this by running a database of thousands of approved FDA compounds on molecular docking software. Molecular docking is a computational simulation of the binding of a ligand to a protein at a residue of its binding site. Then we’re calculating the binding affinity and if it is high, the ligand is likely to inhibit the protein and so disrupt sperm production. The active site of RAR alpha has already been extensively studied from which we are locating a residue from.
University of Minnesota’s Medicinal Chemistry Lab 🧪
Diba and I have gotten the privilege of testing the top few hits from molecular docking at the UofM under Dr. Gunda Georg. We’re excited to spend July 18 - 31st with Diba in Minnesota working on our project.
We’re so grateful to have met Leigh Allen who has mentored and guided us for several months. Leigh, your kindness and support has meant the world to us. While I’m sharing gratitude, I want to also say thank you to Noman - who is such a thoughtful, intelligent, helpful human being. We can’t wait to work with you. And lastly, Gunda - thank you so much for allowing us to work in your lab. We are beyond excited to get to know you better & learn from your expertise in the coming days.
Speaking at Collision Conf 🗣
We spoke at one of the world’s biggest tech conferences at the end of June. It was a thrilling experience. Thank you to Dan Jacobs for making this happen for us <3
Also! We had several interviews which I will link. Canada’s National Observer, Sirius XM, CBC, and Radio Canada (Diba did the last two. I’m not fluent in French, so I’m lucky that my partner is a pro.) I’ll add the Extra Mile interview we did together, and my group one with Forbes when they come out.
Anyways, that’s all from me for now. I’m looking forward to writing post-lab reflections, and an end of summer update.
Life is so exciting right now. I feel like we’re on the cusp of great things, which is deeply fulfilling after all of the work we have both put in. Subscribe to receive these periodic updates, and you’ll hear from us soon.