Preterm birth (PTB) is the leading cause of infant morbidity worldwide. Approximately 380,000 babies are born prematurely in the USA every year. Estrogen (E2) and progesterone (P4) play essential roles during pregnancy and labor; a clear understanding of their action mechanisms, however, is lacking. E2 and P4 function by activating...
Microfluidic technologies enable multi-tissue culture and precise control of media exchange and therefore have significant potential to create more complex in vitro models of reproductive systems, including endocrine cycles. However, microfluidic technologies have largely been applied to gamete-level culture in reproductive biology, with very little progress in organ-level culture. Herein...