Projects

Cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator modulators (CFTR-Ms) are new medications used to treat cystic fibrosis (CF) and have already helped people with CF live longer and healthier lives. Now, as a result, we are seeing more people with CF becoming pregnant. We want to study how these different CFTR-Ms transfer from the pregnant parent to the unborn baby through the placenta. There are different situations where this information is helpful. One, where the parent has CF, but the baby does not, and we want to limit how much the baby might be exposed to. Second, the parent does not have CF but the baby does. In this case, we want to give the baby the right amount of medication to help prevent birth defects that are related to CF. The overall goal is to treat the pregnant parent and/or baby with the right dose so that the medication works, but also the lowest dose to prevent any chance of harming the baby. We will study how these drugs cross the placenta by taking a human placenta to our laboratory rather than throwing the placenta in the garbage. We will set up pumps that act like the blood pumping from both the pregnant parent and baby to the placenta, to recreate what happens in real human pregnancies. By adding the different CFTR-Ms to the parent’s side, we can study how much crosses the placenta. We will then use math to make a tool that can be used easily online to make sure each person needing these medications in pregnancy will get the right dose.

CBD/THC
Many individuals enter pregnancy using marijuana and continue to use during pregnancy, despite concerns regarding potential effects on the developing brain. In pregnancy we are faced with treating two individual patients, the mother and her fetus, even if the treatment was intended solely for the mother. Therefore, understanding the mechanisms of drug transfer from the mother to the fetus is crucial to ensuring the well-being of the maternal-fetal pair. A validated method for studying drug transfer in pregnancy is the placental perfusion model which uses placentas discarded after birth to study if drugs cross the placenta.

Molnupiravir/Nirmatrelvir
As of July 20, 2022, there have been 562,672,324 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 6,367,793 deaths received by the World Health Organization from national authorities. Two antivirals have been developed to treat patients infected with SARS-CoV-2, molnupiravir and nirmatrelvir plus ritonavir. However, as with most new medications, the phase III trial for molnupiravir excluded pregnant women. Given the potential of these oral medications to decrease the severity of COVID-19 infection, their safety profile in pregnancy is urgently needed.