Lab-grown ‘mini placentas’ could hold key to better understanding pre-eclampsia

Credit: Friedrich Miescher Institute/University of Cambridge

By Storm Newton, PA

Lab-grown “mini placentas” could be crucial to better understanding major disorders in pregnancy such as pre-eclampsia, scientists have suggested.

Academics said the development of pre-eclampsia can depend on issues with how the placenta develops in the first weeks of pregnancy and “is a process that is incredibly difficult to study”.