Get ready guys – we’re one step closer to getting a male contraceptive pill. Researchers have pinpointed a faulty gene that impacts sperm movement so that the little fellas can’t penetrate an egg and fertilize it.

The scientists from the University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences in Tehran, Iran, were looking for gene defects related to deafness, but came across the sperm gene – called CATSPER 1 – instead.

Experts speculate that a drug could be developed to stick to the CATSPER1 protein to prevent it from working properly. A man taking this drug would produce abnormal sperm that could not fertilize an egg. The trick with such a drug is to make it not only safe and effective, but also reversible.

photo credit: tacit requiem