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Scientists Think a Lab-Grown Uterus Could Help Fight Infertility
A bioengineered uterus could eliminate the need for risky transplants and make pregnancy an option for trans women
Bioengineer Mats Hellström, PhD, spends most of his days working with mice, rats, and petri dishes full of cells. Although he sees no patients, his work has the potential to impact the lives of thousands, if not millions, of women diagnosed with infertility: He’s working toward creating a lab-grown uterus.
Hellström, an associate professor in bioengineering and organ regeneration at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, originally studied the regeneration of the nervous system, but he became interested in the reproductive system after meeting Mats Brännström, MD, PhD, a pioneer in the field of uterine transplantation. Their goal, Hellström says, became “to create a bioengineered organ to replace the need for a donor.”
“I was at that age where having kids becomes interesting,” he tells Future Human. “It all sounded really, really fascinating.”
Hellström’s work could help women with uterine factor infertility, the kind caused by problems in the structure or function of the uterus. It isn’t the most common cause of infertility, but it’s not especially rare, either, affecting an estimated one in 500 reproductive-age women. While it can sometimes be addressed with surgery, women with this type of infertility generally have limited options if they want to give birth to children. On top of that, infertility can negatively impact their mental health and quality of life. “I think most people really underestimate the psychological effect of infertility,” says Alice Domar, PhD, a health psychologist at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, whose 1993 paper showed that women with infertility had equivalent levels of anxiety and depression to women with cancer, AIDS, and heart disease. “For infertility patients,” she says, “infertility affects every area of their lives.”
As factors like financial instability and pursuit of career goals cause women to increasingly delay having children, infertility could become even more common in the future. Infertility is also an issue for trans women hoping to have children, although…
