losses where the fetus is apparently healthy,” Svarre Nielsen says.
She aims to do two things: first, to provide a diagnosis that gives
the parents some closure, and second, to identify a way to avoid a
future pregnancy loss, perhaps through treatment.
Svarre Nielsen adds that women who have lost pregnancies
are at a higher risk of other health problems later in life, including
diabetes, heart disease, and mental-health disorders. She
states, “If the precursors of these diseases are treated, we may
be able to reduce pregnancy loss. A reduction of just 5% would
significantly increase the number of wanted children, given the
high frequency of pregnancy losses.” Beyond saving pregnancies,
Svarre Nielsen asks: “Can we actually use pregnancy loss and a
few tests to identify women
at risk of disease 10 or 15 years
later? ”Over the horizon
Many more areas of life
science will benefit from
innovative scientists.
Nielsen mentions “the green
transformation” and the “need
to establish a more sustainable
society.” For example,
innovations in life science
could potentially eliminate
carbon dioxide produced from
agriculture.
“Science is often driven by
curiosity, which emphasizes the
need to broaden one’s research focus in order to drive innovation
and develop new solutions,” Langer says. “We need to celebrate
those who dare to think differently and follow their passion.”References
- P. A. Sharp, R. Langer, Science 333 , 527, doi: 10.1126/science.1205008.
- Mayo Clinic, “Miscarriage”; available at https://www.mayoclinic.org/
diseases-conditions/pregnancy-loss-miscarriage/symptoms-causes/
s y c-2 03 5 42 9 8. - https://bii.dk/faculty/professor-henriette-svarre-nielsen-2.
Produced by the Science
Sponsored byThat leads to multidisciplinary thinking, which is fundamental
to Langer’s own success. In 2011, he and Nobel laureate Phillip
Sharp described going even further, pointing out the “increasing
need to merge expertise that goes beyond the interdisciplinary
intersection of fields to the emergence of new disciplines” ( 1 ).
Thinking back on that concept, Langer says, “I think that
convergence is becoming more and more useful for innovation
and for startup companies.”Research to reduce pregnancy loss
Multidisciplinary research also plays a critical role in reducing
one of life’s cruelest moments: the loss of a pregnancy.
According to the Mayo Clinic ( 2 ),
approximately 10% to 20% of
all known pregnancies end in
a miscarriage. But the actual
number is probably higher, as
many miscarriages occur early in
pregnancy before the mother is
aware she is pregnant.
Henriette Svarre Nielsen,
professor of medicine at the
University of Copenhagen and
head of the Recurrent Pregnancy
Loss Unit at Amager and Hvidovre
Hospital, has spent 20 years
trying to find the causes of so
many pregnancy losses. “From
long-term research, I now
understand that pregnancy loss
is not just a binary event in the life of people who want a child,”
she says. “Yet, when the loss happens, parents don’t receive an
explanation capable of easing their grief and sorrow and enabling
relevant action to avoid recurrence.” She wants to change that.
Working with BII, Svarre Nielsen is leading a project on the
early diagnosis of pregnancy loss. The study’s description notes
that it focuses on developing “a diagnostic test that can inform
couples after a pregnancy loss to guide relevant actions [with the
potential of increasing] live birth rates” ( 3 ).
Svarre Nielsen and her colleagues started enrolling patients
1 year ago by selecting couples who experienced a pregnancy
loss to obtain various biosamples for analysis. It is well described
that approximately 60% of pregnancy losses can be explained
by a chromosomal abnormality. “The intriguing perspective of
this study is to explore what triggers the rejection of euploid
pregnancies—those in which the fetus has the normal number of
chromosomes,” Svarre Nielsen explains.
To determine the reason, scientists perform genome
sequencing to “look for a genetic cause of death and characterizeI know from experience
in the U.S. that raising the
entrepreneurial capacity
in society takes a strong
collaboration between
dedicated organizations in
an ecosystem.
— Robert Langer
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