On this page you will find a list of placental laboratories from around the world, with a short description of their aims, research projects, techniques, fields of study etc. If you click on the name of the laboratory you will be taken to their website. This list is in alphabetical order.

Aleksunes Laboratory (Rutgers University, USA) Placenta barrier transporters, NIH Transporter Elucidation Network, maternal-fetal transfer, environmental and pharmaceutical toxicology, endocrine disruption, translational approaches

Bürki Laboratory (Empa – Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science & Technology; Switzerland) Discovery of the fundamentals of nanoparticle-biobarrier (placenta, lung, skin, intestine) using state-of-the-art human models (ex vivo tissue and perfusion models, in vitro co-cultures, 3D microtissues, microphysiological chip, primary cells). Correlation of physicochemical particle properties with barrier uptake, translocation and biological effects in order to support the safe design and use of nanoparticles and the development of novel particle-based therapeutic concepts.

Cahill Laboratory (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada)  Mouse models of pregnancy, environmental exposures (micro-/nanoplastics, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), placental dysfunction, fetal brain development, high-frequency ultrasound biomicroscopy, magnetic resonance imaging, placental metabolomics

Charalambous Laboratory (Francis Crick Institute, London UK) Maternal metabolic adaptations, fetal-maternal communication, fetal growth restriction, placental development, transport and endocrine function. We mainly use mouse models with genetic modifications combined with lipidomic/transcriptomic analyses.

Fogarty Laboratory (King’s College London, UK) Molecular mechanisms underlying human placenta development, signalling pathways, human embryo research, trophoblast stem cells, modelling preeclampsia. 

Gernand Laboratory (Micronutrients and Pregnancy Laboratory. Pennsylvania State University, USA) Placental growth and development, placental pathologies, angiogenesis, assessment via digital photographs (PlacentaVision | AI-driven Analysis of Placentas), maternal micronutrient deficiencies, fetal growth, plasma volume expansion, low-resource settings, low- and middle-income countries

Gladfelter Laboratory (Duke University Department of Cell Biology and Biomedical Engineering) We study the cell biology of human placenta using both primary tissue and organoid models.  We combine quantitative single cell and single molecule imaging with genetics and genomics to understand how the syncytial trophoblast cells form and function.

Harris Laboratory (University of Nebraska Medical Center, USA) Human and rodent models of placental function, trophoblast biology, obstetric nanomedicines, mechanisms mediating targeted drug delivery, effects of opioids on placental and fetal brain development. 

Marshall Laboratory (Monash University, Melbourne, Australia) Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy including preeclampsia, fetal growth restriction, GDM. Vascular assessments (wire myography) of mice and rats (uterine, mesenteric, renal, aorta) and women (omentum, subcutaneous fat). Primary cell isolation and culture of HUVECs and trophoblasts, gene expression, protein expression. Pharmacokinetic studies and non-invasive vascular assessments in pregnant women.

Moraes laboratory (McGill University, Canada) Microscale tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, in vitro model development,  mechanical drivers of disease, organ-on-a-chip, mechanobiology, biomechanics, biomaterials, microfluidics. 

O’Brien Laboratory (Cornell University, USA) Human placental mineral and vitamin D transport, stable isotopes, obesity, anemia, nutrient kinetics, nutrigenomics.

Parast Laboratory (University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA) Mouse models of placental dysfunction, human primary and pluripotent stem cell-based models of trophoblast differentiation, role of oxygen tension in trophoblast differentiation, pluripotent stem cell-based models of placenta-maternal and placenta-fetal cell cross talk, placental pathology in the setting of preeclampsia, fetal growth restriction, spontaneous preterm birth, and stillbirth.

Riddell Laboratory (University of Alberta, Canada) Human trophoblast inflammatory cell death pathways in placental disease and infection; Cell polarity proteins in trophoblast stem cell differentiation; decidual vascular remodeling in advance age pregnancies using human tissue and mouse models.

Sferruzzi-Perri Laboratory (Centre for Trophoblast Research, Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, University of Cambridge, UK) Understanding the importance of genes and environmental factors in determining pregnancy and life-long cardio-metabolic health of mother and offspring. Use of mouse models, human pregnancy samples and cultured trophoblast with integrative analyses of substrate transport, mitochondrial metabolism, morphology and gene/protein expression.

Soares Laboratory (University of Kansas Medical Center, USA) Molecular mechanisms regulating differentiation of the trophoblast cell lineage, hemochorial placentation, and maternal adaptations to pregnancy.

Varberg laboratory (Children’s Mercy, Kansas City, MO, USA) Epigenomic profiling of human trophoblast stem cell models to study regulatory mechanisms of trophoblast cell lineage development. Derivation of new human trophoblast stem cell lines from placental tissues. In vivo modeling in rat.

Watson Laboratory (University of Cambridge, UK)  Mouse placenta development, trophoblast lineages and functions, environmental effects, folate metabolism, epigenetic regulation, multigenerational inheritance of developmental phenotypes, maternal-fetal interactions

Wilson Pregnancy Laboratory (McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada) We are an ‘omics research group with an emphasis on genomics, epigenomics, and transcriptomics. Our goal is to develop non-invasive methods to predict pregnancy complications before they occur, and to understand the cause of placental dysfunction. We work in the fields of genomics, computational biology, and reproduction.