Barriers to progress in pregnancy research How can we break through

• 成果类型: Review
• 署名作者: Stock, Sarah J.; Aiken, Catherine E.
• 署名单位: University of Edinburgh; University of Edinburgh; University of Cambridge; University of Cambridge; University of Cambridge; Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; Addenbrooke's Hospital; Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; Addenbrooke's Hospital; University of Cambridge
• 刊物名称: SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0036-12115
• DOI: 10.1126/science.adf9347
• 发表日期: 2023-04-13
• 页码: 150-153
• 关键词: high-risk; epidemiology

摘要

Healthy pregnancies are fundamental to healthy populations, but very few therapies to improve pregnancy outcomes are available. Fundamental concepts-for example, placentation or the mechanisms that control the onset of labor-remain understudied and incompletely understood. A key issue is that research efforts must capture the complexity of the tripartite maternal-placental-fetal system, the dynamics of which change throughout gestation. Studying pregnancy disorders is complicated by the difficulty of creating maternal-placental-fetal interfaces in vitro and the uncertain relevance of animal models to human pregnancy. However, newer approaches include trophoblast organoids to model the developing placenta and integrated data-science approaches to study longer-term outcomes. These approaches provide insights into the physiology of healthy pregnancy, which is the first step to identifying therapeutic targets in pregnancy disorders.