Every year, there are 200 million pregnancies. Approximately half of them have at least one pregnancy complication. Pregnant individuals face challenges due to the absence of preventive therapies and limited options for acute therapies for pregnancy-related conditions, such as diabetes, hypertension, or preeclampsia and many more.
The current standard of care is focusing on treating symptoms rather than the root cause. Some pregnancy-related conditions can have a lasting impact on the long term cardiovascular and metabolic health of both mother and child.
This gap in early preventive treatment contributes to increased healthcare expenses and adverse outcomes due to long term complications.
Team NURTURE is building an AI-based platform solution built on a placental organoid multi-omics pipeline. The data for in vitro drug testing is combined with in vivo clinical data, overcoming limitations in pre-clinical trials during pregnancy. The aim is to increase the number of therapeutic options available to treat complications in pregnancy. This is done by quickly identifying compounds that are effective in treating the condition and by having initial safety data before any animal studies are conducted.
Ultimately, more than half the population benefits from improved access to effective and safe therapeutics that can reduce harms associated with pregnancy related disease. This is accomplished by identifying the most promising compounds in leading pharmaceutical companies’ portfolios and focusing their efforts on those that will make the biggest impact.
NURTURE’s uniqueness lies in the combination of AI-enhanced placental organoid multi-omics and clinical data that enables early predictive readouts for in vitro drug testing. The focus on pregnancy-related diseases and integration of clinical and in vitro data makes it a pioneering solution.
NURTURE will revolutionize the number of therapies available during pregnancy by overcoming obstacles in the path of new drug approval. NURTURE’s mission is to reduce the long-term healthcare burden caused by complications in pregnancy by improving the availability of preventative therapies.
This team is led by a clinician scientist with expertise in translational studies investigating pregnancy complications and an international expert in AI & Data Science in Biology. Together they lead a team of computational biologists with a wet lab background, ensuring they collectively have all the required specialized expertise essential for the project’s success.
Data Scientists
Sunhild Hartmann, Kerim Secener, Dr Sebastian Mackowiak
Medical & Preclinical Lead
Tech & AI Lead
