Project placenta

摘要

What is so interesting about the placenta? The human placenta is unique - it's the only organ that you discard after it grows. And you might grow another one and discard that too. It does many jobs that other organs do. It provides nutrition to the baby, and functions as its lungs, kidneys and immune system. Don't we already have a reasonable understanding of the placenta? No, the placenta develops over time just like the baby, yet most of the research is on placentas delivered at birth. That only gives you a snapshot, One of the reasons we launched the Human Placenta Project is that there have been huge advances in technology in other medical fields that have not yet been applied to pregnancy. We aim to develop tools to better understand whaf s happening, in real time, throughout the process.