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InTEC is a nationwide consortium to advance our understanding of how membrane transporters control the movement of nutrients, medications, supplements, and environmental chemicals between mother and baby.
Predicting Maternal-Fetal Transfer with Innovative Technologies
Define the Placental Transporter Proteome in Healthy and Diseased Pregnancies
The developing baby needs nutrition from its mother in order to grow and properly develop. One means to obtain this nutrition is through a placenta – an organ that comes from the baby and connects to the mother. Nutrients cross the placenta – but so do medications, supplements, and toxicants. Our research seeks to reveal how these chemicals move back and forth between mother and baby.
We are integrating data obtained from human pregnancies to define the transporter proteome healthy pregnancies as well as those complicated by diseases such as preeclampsia and gestational diabetes.
Predict and Test Novel Functional and Regulatory Interactions of Chemicals with Transporters
Drugs and chemicals are often too large to enter and exit cells unassisted. Transporter proteins can be used as gates that regulate which chemicals enter and leave cells. In fact, the Solute Carriers (SLC) are proteins that can regulate the uptake or removal of chemicals from cells or organelles. In addition, the ATP-binding cassette transporters (ABC) function as efflux pumps that remove chemicals from the cell.
We are applying cheminformatic and machine learning approaches to reveal new substrates and inhibitors of placental SLC and ABC transporters.
Evaluate Drug and Chemical Transfer in a Human Placenta-on-a-Chip Model
Pregnancies in animals such as mice and rats are quite different from humans! We are using bioengineering and microfabrication approaches to create simple and complex physiological systems that resemble the maternal-fetal barrier.
For these studies, placenta-on-a-chip systems are fabricated, seeded with human placental cells, and placed under dynamic flow that allow for selective infusion and sampling of nutrients, drugs, supplements, and toxicants.
Recent News
A New Placenta Center at Rutgers will Support Healthy Pregnancies
Rutgers University is teaming up with other top schools to launch a research center funded with a $5 million grant by the National Institutes of Health to find out how … Read More
U. Researchers Receive $5 Million Grant to Study Placenta’s Relationship to Early Infant Development
On October 30, Rutgers, along with Tulane University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Rochester, announced a collaborative research center … Read More
Penn Partners in Multi-University Research Center Supporting Healthy Pregnancies
How does the placenta keep harmful substances away from developing babies while still providing proper nutrition? The exact mechanisms remain unknown, which is why the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers University, … Read More