Vanderbilt University Medical Center has been selected by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) as an awardee of the Sprint for Women’s Health, an initiative to address critical unmet challenges in women’s health, champion transformative innovations and tackle health conditions that uniquely or disproportionately affect women. VUMC will receive $3.3 million in funding over two years through the Sprint for Women’s Health spark track for early-stage research efforts.
Jennifer Herington, PhD, assistant professor of Pediatrics and Pharmacology, and Todd Giorgio, PhD, professor of Biomedical Engineering, joined forces four years ago to begin developing innovative uterine-targeted delivery systems for therapeutics known as tocolytics. These medications are designed to suppress premature uterine contractions during pregnancy.
“The collaborative environment among the faculty at VUMC and Vanderbilt School of Engineering drives innovation and develops solutions to important, unmet medical needs,” Giorgio said. “The most interesting and successful research activities in my laboratory are generated from interdisciplinary collaborations.”
Every year, approximately 15 million pregnancies worldwide end prematurely, before 37 weeks of gestation. The United States has one of the highest rates of preterm births among high-resource countries, with 1 in every 10 women delivering prematurely. The estimated societal economic loss in the U.S. is approximately $25 billion, which includes medical costs, educational expenses and lost productivity.