Karolina Radziun

My PhD project is focusing on deriving a placenta-on-chip model to study feto-maternal interface.

 

The urgent need to provide a new model to study cross-placental transport of pathogens, antibodies and drugs results from the failure in the usage of animal model which cannot mimic structural and/or functional properties of the human placenta, ex vivo human models are impractical, difficult to set up, of limited capability, and in vitro models lack physiological relevance by virtue of their monolayer and/or static set-up. This model is going to help to better understand the mechanisms underlying the transmission of pathogens, the transfer of passive immunity and drugs from the mother to the foetus.