Researchers design placenta-on-a-chip to better understand pregnancy

NIH | JULY 5, 2015

Researchers have developed a “placenta-on-a-chip” to study the inner workings of the human placenta and its role in pregnancy. The device was designed to imitate, on a micro-level, the structure and function of the placenta and model the transfer of nutrients from mother to fetus.

Studying the placenta in humans is challenging: it is time-consuming, subject to a great deal of variability and potentially risky for the fetus. For those reasons, previous studies on placental transport have relied largely on animal models and on laboratory-grown human cells.

The researchers created the placenta-on-a-chip technology to address these challenges, using human cells in a structure that more closely resembles the placenta’s maternal-fetal barrier. The device consists of a semi-permeable membrane between two tiny chambers, one filled with maternal cells derived from a delivered placenta and the other filled with fetal cells derived from an umbilical cord.

After designing the structure of the model, the researchers tested its function by evaluating the transfer of glucose from the maternal compartment to the fetal compartment. The successful transfer of glucose in the device mirrored what occurs in the body.

This technology may lead to better understanding of normal placental processes and placental disorders.

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