ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGIES FOR GLOBAL WOMEN'S HEALTH

Credit Hours: 3 · Graduate

Only a few decades ago, the National Institutes of Health issued the Revitalization Act of 1993 mandating the inclusion of women and minorities in all NIH-funded clinical research. Until this point, the safety and efficacy of new drugs and devices brought to market were tested predominantly in males. Still, to this day, >99% of investigational new drug trials exclude pregnant women as participants, leading to dramatic inequities in the standard of care for these patients and the conditions that uniquely affect them. In this course, we will begin by discussing these historical contexts that have shaped the current state of women's health research. The main focus of the course will be to explore current research endeavors in the preclinical and clinical settings specifically dedicated towards women's health. This will include discussions on the engineering and design considerations for new drugs and device technologies for female patients, particularly in the context of global women's health. Topics will include vagina- and placenta-on-a-chip technologies, drug delivery to reproductive tissues, biomechanics of pregnancy, tissue engineering strategies for fertility, gynecologic cancer immunotherapies and more.