Funding outcome

The placenta is an organ during pregnancy that is important for the transport of oxygen and nutrients between the mother's blood and the developing fetus. Malfunction of the placenta commonly causes pregnancy complications, like preeclampsia. Preeclampsia is when there are dangerous increases in maternal blood pressure during pregnancy. The surface of the placenta contains specialized placental-specific cells called trophoblasts. These cells are responsible for exchanging nutrients between the mother and the fetus. Importantly, increased levels of cell death or improper cell function in the trophoblasts drives the development of preeclampsia. But, presently the only treatment for this disease is delivery of the baby. This often leads to preterm delivery of babies to protect the mother's life. Therefore, there is great effort being placed on the identification of drugs that could be used to treat preeclampsia. Since cell death and dysfunction in trophoblasts leads to the development of preeclampsia, delivery of drugs directly to these cells may be an effective way to treat this pregnancy complication. Targeted delivery of drugs to specific cell types can be achieved by taking advantage of cell-type-specific expression of surface receptors. The trophoblasts at the maternal-facing surface of the placenta express a protein called Siglec-6. Therefore, we have developed a nano-particle system that binds to Siglec-6 to use it to deliver drugs specifically to trophoblasts. In this project, we will further improve the binding of the nanoparticles to Siglec-6. We will also use our drug-delivery system to deliver an anti-cell death drug to the trophoblasts in cell cultures, to see whether we can effectively block trophoblast cell death. Therefore, our work will continue to develop a placental-targeting drug delivery system that could be used in the future to treat preeclampsia and improve the health of mothers and their babies.