The lung, the rain jacket and the not so bullet-proof vest

The lung, the rain jacket and the not so bullet-proof vest: what can learn about placenta from sheep models of fetal development?

There’s growing appreciation for the multifaceted nature of placenta. Not all its functions can be studied in one and the same animal model. I will focus on what we learned from the chronically instrumented non-anesthetized fetal sheep model of human fetal development in health and disease. I will discuss what potential resources such a model would make available to the UW community interested in placental physiology, its role in programming fetal development and the diagnostic utility to predict perinatal organ injury and postnatal developmental trajectories.