Cambridge Reading Group on Reproduction - November

Led by Dr Catherine Aiken - Honorary Consultant in Maternal and Fetal Medicine

Reading: 
Sarah J. Stock, Catherine E. Aiken, Barriers to progress in pregnancy research: How can we break through? Science 380,150-153 (2023)

Registration will be required in order to obtain access to the full article on Moodle. 

Introduction: 

Excluding reformulations, in the past 30 years, only two drugs have been licensed for use in pregnancy. At the same time, pregnancy complications are increasing, with profound implications for immediate and life-course health of both infants and mothers. This paper discusses some of the barriers to progress in developing safe and effective treatments for pregnancy complications, including systemic social and political factors; deliberate exclusion of pregnant women from research; the complexity of the dynamic maternal-placental-fetal system; uncertainty about the relevance of in vitro and animal models to inaccessible in vivo systems and processes; and disparities in pregnancy outcomes within and between countries.