Filtration & fluid control


Studying disease development Once we’ve got a reliable model of the placenta to work with, we can simulate disease states and study what happens. “This is something that we are doing intensively for our projects,” says Labouta. “You want to model those pathological environments, not just the physiological ones.” Preeclampsia is a current research interest within both Labouta’s and Haase’s labs, with both teams working on ways to model the condition within a chip. Haase’s group plans to put cell samples from both healthy and preeclamptic women into their chip to see how it affects the environment. “For example, [we could] see if the foetal vasculature develops quite differently. And to see whether or not the barrier function develops differently,” she says. “This will provide insight into how the disease can progress and develop.” Tweaking other variables within a device can also help mimic physiological states related to disease. For example, increasing fluid pressure can simulate hypertension, which is strongly associated with preeclampsia. To better reflect what happens inside the


body, models for studying disease could also create membrane barriers that better limit the size of molecules able to pass through, says Haase. “What we’ve managed to do is create a barrier that is pretty good, but not perfect. Usually, you would try to make a barrier that would limit anything less than one kilodalton from crossing to the foetal side.” Roughly, this is the size of one large molecule. This could help us study how infections like malaria affect the placenta, she adds.


Other labs are already looking into malaria. Last


year, researchers from Florida Atlantic University and Schmidt College of Medicine created a placenta- on-a-chip device modelling nutrient exchange between parent and embryo, in a malaria-infected environment. Cells were cultured on either side of a barrier – one foetal and one maternal – and researchers observed how infected blood flowed through it. They found that the blood added resistance to the barrier, making it harder for nutrients to pass through.


Testing new therapies


As well as modelling disease states, microfluidic channels can be used to test how various therapies impact the placenta. One way to do this is by deploying nanotherapies – nanoparticles that trigger the immune system into making antibodies – and seeing how they affect target cells on a chip model. Labouta is working on a device that models how nanotherapies used to treat breast cancer in pregnant women affect the placenta. Here, the challenge is to create an environment that resembles angiogenic circulation, she says. This is the process of new blood


100 MMI052_Introtek.indd 4 25/04/2023 20:21 Medical Device Developments / www.nsmedicaldevices.com


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