Through the National Institutes of $41.5 million Health Human Placenta Project, researchers recently developed a placenta on a chip that successfully mimics the process of bodily fluid exchange between mother and child. (via NIH)
As cases of cancer and fetal abnormalities surface each year, the National Institutes of Health believes the placenta holds the key to understanding how the human body functions. The organization recently declared it will invest $41.5 million in furthering placenta research through its Human Placenta Project (HPP), beginning with the development of a placenta on a chip.
Conducting studies with pregnant women is hard, Hackensack University Medical Center placenta researcher Nicholas Illsley said during an HPP outlook meeting. That’s why researchers decided to use current technology to replicate the placenta and study its natural function in an artificial setting.
The placenta chip is composed of two micro chambers. One is filled with maternal cells collected from a delivered placenta, and the other is filled with cells collected from a delivered umbilical cord. Between the chambers lies a semi-permeable membrane that ideally tracks how nutrients and bodily fluids flow between mother and child. In a trial, researchers successfully watched how glucose passed from the maternal cells to the fetal cells, and stated it took place in a way that replicated the real process.
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Director Alan Guttmacher said the placenta is the least understood human organ. It is a temporary organ that develops after conception that both keeps a mother’s body from rejecting the new, foreign fetus and also allows the passage of bodily fluids and nutrients. This organ, however, does not always develop healthily. When it falters, the results can be dangerous for both a mother and her child.
The placenta is responsible for delivering necessary nutritents to a fetus as it develops within the womb. When this goes wrong, the growth of that fetus may be stunted. Furthermore, it is believed that the faulty growth of the placenta may be responsible for gestational high blood pressure. The effects of a malfunctioning placenta are felt by the fetus into his adult life as well, as it has been linked to adult health complications, such as insulin resistance and cardiovascular disease.
The placenta on a chip is just one initiative to come from the HPP. Researchers hope to develop a drug that can correct placenta abnormalities and enhance methods for monitoring the healthy development of the placenta, including magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasound. Overall, the NIH hopes the HPP will further placenta research to better understand one of the most important organs to sustaining new human life.
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