Journal of Reproductive Immunology, 10 (1987) 259-260 259 Elsevier Scientific Publishers Irehnd Ltd.

Report

Contraception Research for Today and the 1990s --Inaugural Symposium

National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi, India, October 3 - 5 , 1986

The world's population now exceeds 5000 million and is projected to reach 10,000 million by 2050. Currently, India comprises 15% of the world's population and its proportion is steadily rising. Indeed, India is anticipated soon to overtake China as the most populous nation. Adequate contraception is practised only by a minority of fertile women in India, and this situation is likely to continue until novel acceptable methods can be introduced on a mass scale. It was against this backdrop that an International Symposium was held to commemorate the inauguration of the National Institute of Immunology in New Delhi. This Institute, an impressive red sandstone complex, is staffed by 35 senior scientists under the direction of Professor G.P. Talwar. It has a major commitment to birth control vaccine develop- ment-;, as well as to immunodiagnosis and treatment in tropical disease.

This Symposium was attended by a substantial number of Indian scien- tists as well as more than 30 overseas scientists, mostly from the U.S.A. The first day concentrated on demographic trends and needs in population control, as well as on endocrinological aspects of fertility regulation. Birth control vaccines then dominated the next 2 days. A series of-presentations was given by the Indian team on two formulations of #-hCG vaccine now in phase I trials. Their immunogenicity has been enhanced by annealing intact #-hCG with a heterospecies alpha subunit (e-ovine LH), with tetanus toxoid and/or cholera toxin chain B carriers, and had been developed follow- ing lessons learnt from a prototype vaccine 10 years ago. Complementary presentations described both the WHO and Population Council current initiatives in this same area, and the results of these trials are now awaited. The /3-hCG approach does not interfere with ovulation or non-pregnant reproductive tissues processes, and probably acts by neutralising the sys- temic protein hormonal action of hCG without an essential need for local immunity.

Additional presentations centred on future developments for a vaccine approach based on epitope engineering and carder co-expression vectors using molecular biological techniques. The Symposium then addressed

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other potential reproductive tissue targets, including sperm, zona pellucida and early embryonic trophoblast antigens, as well as basic immunological considerations in the delivery of antifertility vaccines. In summary, this Symposium successfully highlighted the need and increasing interest for the broad approach of birth control vaccines.

Peter M. Johnson Department of Immunology University of Liverpool P.O. Box 147 Liverpool L69 3BX, U.K.

Deborah J. Anderson Fearing Research Laboratory

S. Mudd 205 Harvard Medical School

Boston, MA, U.S.A.