With half the population of the world having female reproductive organs, it is pretty surprising how little we actually know about about health issues that affect women and their reproductive organs. Recently, scientists from Northwestern University created a 3-D model of the system, called EVATAR, with samples from donated tissues of fallopian tubes, a cervix, and a uterus. Each tissue type was placed in separate plastic chambers, which were connected with special fluid pumps to simulate blood flow. Researchers were then able to mimic a woman’s cycle by having it release an egg from the ovarian tissue, and produce the correct hormones.The scientists wrote that this will be able to give them a chance to better understand women’s health issues, and learn the best treatments to use for women. With this, they can tell how women might metabolize drugs differently than men. Dr. Teresa Woodruff hopes that this is the first step into developing personalized systems for every woman. She hopes that in the future, individual patient’s stem cells could be used in the system that would allow medical professionals to comprehend each woman’s cycle personally. Scientists also hope to use this technology to improve the way they study the effects of cancer, since it is normally studied on isolated cells, instead of a whole system.
I have stated before that I feel that it is embarrassing that so little is actually known about women’s health, and how little effort has been put into research. I think is a fantastic step forward, and with modern technology at the step that it is now, we can learn quite a bit about the female reproductive system in a very short time. I'm hoping that this will also lead to further systems being created in order to research body systems and how different drugs and treatments can affect them.
This whole thing can be revolutionary in the research of medicine, and can also lead to testing being focused completely on these simulated systems. Animal rights activists and many naturalists would be happy to see these tests no longer being performed on animals, and then we can also know that the effects of the tests are more accurate. With more accurate tests, hopefully the development of drugs and treatments could be accelerated.
