Local Doctor Looking At Placenta's Role In Zika Infections
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- It's hard to fight an enemy you don't know much about.
Zika virus for example.
"We don't know enough about Zika to say how it gets in," says Magee Women's Research Institute's placental researcher, Dr. Yoel Sadovsky.
Dr. Sadovsky is looking at how the virus makes its invasion. To get to baby, it has to outwit the placenta.
It is a puzzle, because other viruses related to Zika don't do this.
"Many of the viruses of the family of Zika do not seem to have a specific effect on the pregnancy, and some viruses, perhaps Zika is one of them, may find a way to get in," Dr. Sadovsky says.
The placenta is an organ that develops in the uterus during pregnancy. It connects mom to baby. It provides nutrients and oxygen to the baby, and removes waste products. It also serves as a barrier to microbes. But it's not perfect, and sometimes infections can pass from mother to child.
This can happen when viruses get into the womb directly across the placenta, or they squeeze in between the cells, or they're brought inside by certain immune system cells, or they enter through the cervix, the lower opening of the womb.
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What Zika does, and how, isn't yet known.
What's more, placental cells produce chemicals to fight off infection. It's possible Zika is able to escape this. That's where his work is focused.
"In our lab, we collect those placentas after birth, and we harvest the cells from the placental surface, we culture them and we can test their resistance or susceptibility to viral infections," he explains.
Understanding the process can help guide future treatments and protect against birth defects. But the studies, at this point, are in their infancy.
"This is a very pressing issue right now. These infections seem to expand geographically. And the public, rightly, is very concerned about it," says Dr. Sadovsky. "We feel this is our scientific, but also societal obligation to start this research right away."
