"Micro-Chip" Placenta May Help Shed Light on Pregnancy Mysteries

Researchers have created "placenta-on-a-chip," a miniature device that uses actual human cells to imitate the way a placenta works inside a pregnant woman's body. The organ, essential to human life, sustains a fetus while it grows.

"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," the National Institutes of Health (NIH) explained in a statement.

Researchers testified the model by adding glucose to the chamber of the device that contained maternal cells and then watched as the glucose was transferred through the semi-permeable membrane and over to the chamber of fetal cells, a process that that mirrors what happens when nutrients are passed through the placenta to a growing fetus, The Atlantic noted.

"The chip may allow us to do experiments more efficiently and at a lower cost than animal studies," said Roberto Romero, the chief of the perinatology research at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, in a statement. "We hope this technology may lead to better understanding of normal placental processes and placental disorders."

NIH claims that the placenta may be the "least understood human organ."

The findings were published in The Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine.