Scientists make breakthrough in womb repair, giving hope
ABOUT 6% of women who need fertility treatment have a problem with their womb, often caused by injury or surgery to remove fibroids and polyps. Their only hope is to have a womb transplant, which means taking powerful anti-rejection drugs. But now scientists have made a breakthrough in rabbits, after regrowing part of a womb using the animals’ own cells, and using it to repair the damaged organ.
Four out of 10 rabbits this was trialled on became pregnant and gave birth to kits of normal weight. If a woman’s own cells could be used to regrow part of her womb, she would not need drugs to stop her immune system rejecting it.
While transplants from live or dead donors have enabled live births in humans, a lack of donor organs and the need for immunosuppressive drugs to support the transplanted uterus limit its use.
Dr Anthony Atala, principal investigator of a study on the technique from the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, said: “This approach might provide a pathway to pregnancy for women with an abnormal uterus.”
Darren Griffin, a genetics professor at Kent University who was not involved in the research, said the results were “significant, but we don’t yet know how successful this will be for humans”.
The study was published in the journal Nature Biotechnology.