Better Sex and Stopping Aids with the "Super Condom"

A new condom that men would actually want use is just on the horizon. Not only is it designed to enhance pleasure, it can also save lives.

Scientists at the Texas A&M Health Science Center have created a “supercondom” which is made from a hydrogel-like polymer similar to the squishy material from which contact lenses are made. The material is composed primarily of water.

Dr. Mahua Choudhury is the assistant professor at the Texas A&M Health Science Center Irma Lerma Rangel College of Pharmacy, and has become the “face” of the researchers' team. She notes that “Some people are allergic to latex, and others are just not comfortable with it... Therefore, we wanted to create a novel material.”

That new polymer will be exceptionally strong and highly elastic, and embedded with an antioxidant that will enhance sexual experience and help prevent HIV transmission. That's because the antioxidants will promote smooth muscle relaxation, increase arterial blood flow, and maintain nitric oxide levels. These help to stimulate and maintain the erection.

But it is the HIV virus-fighting component that has the medical community most excited, and is the most likely reason the “supercondom” project was one of only 54 applicants selected out of 1,700 to receive the Grand Challenge in Global Health award from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  The former Microsoft CEO's foundation funds individuals worldwide to solve persistent global health challenges.

Though not the source of headlines it once was, AIDS is still a worldwide problem. Even though antiretroviral therapy has turned the once inevitably fatal disease into a chronic one, 1.2 million people died as a result of AIDS-related diseases in 2014. In fact, the UN has called for a 'rapid scale-up of essential HIV prevention and treatment approaches.’

Dr Choudhury and the Gates Foundation see the “supercondom” as part of that scaling-up action. The prophylactic has a plant-based antioxidant enmeshed in it that has been shown to have anti-HIV properties. If there is an accident of some kind or the condom breaks, the antioxidantis released and will prevent the replication of the HIV virus.

The researchers feel their new condom will “revolutionize the HIV prevention initiative,” because condoms have long been regarded as key way to prevent infection, but the “supercondom” is the first of its kind that people will want to use.