Regenerative medicine approaches for Women's Health
- Submission status
- Open
- Submission deadline
Women have been understudied and underrepresented in biological research, resulting in substantial gender disparities in science and healthcare. Women’s health includes conditions that are female sex- and gender-specific plus those that affect women disproportionately or differently. The goal of regenerative medicine is to promote regeneration or constructive remodeling of the host tissues, by facilitating or enabling the endogenous regeneration, or delivering exogenous cells or constructs. Despite their wide application and significant positive impact on various medical disciplines, regenerative approaches deployed in women’s health are strikingly behind those in other fields. Women are generally different in size and body composition and have different physiology, including receptors for sex hormones that vary from menarche to after menopause. Regenerative medicine approaches present opportunities for creation of in vitro and in vivo preclinical model systems for studying these effects in the laboratory as well as development of novel treatment paradigms for eventual clinical use. This Collection will focus on bench-to-bedside and back approach and welcomes regenerative medicine research across the range of development phases from early- to pre-clinical to translational development.
Editors
-
Marianna Alperin, M.D., M.S.
Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA; Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, La Jolla, CA, USA.
-
Michelle Oyen, PhD
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, and Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, USA.
npj Regenerative Medicine is managed by in-house professional editors and edited by a team of external academic editors.
npj Women's Health is managed by in-house professional editors and edited by a team of external academic editors.
Scientific Reports is managed by in-house professional editors and edited by Editorial Board Members.
Our editors work closely together to ensure the quality of our published papers and consistency in author experience.
Guest Editors for npj Regenerative Medicine
Marianna Alperin, M.D., M.S, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA; Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, La Jolla, CA, USA.
Dr. Marianna Alperin is a Professor and Vice Chair for Translational Research in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Medicine at the University of California San Diego, and a faculty member at the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine. Dr. Alperin obtained a Medical Degree with Distinction in Community Service at the St. Louis University School of Medicine in 2001. She completed an Obstetrics and Gynecology residency at Brigham and Women's & Massachusetts General Hospitals, Harvard School of Medicine in 2005, and a Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh in 2008. The mission of the Alperin lab is to discover scientifically rational treatment and prevention strategies for women’s health, with special focus on pelvic floor disorders. Dr. Alperin’s expertise as a practicing urogynecology and pelvic reconstructive surgery specialist places her in a unique position, in which her clinical and surgical understanding help guide the directions of the lab’s basic science and translational studies to answer the most relevant clinical questions. Her NIH-funded laboratory https://alperinmlab.org/ uses a multi-pronged approach, including computational modeling, in vitro and in vivo experimental models, cadaveric tissues, and biospecimens from living women, to study the impact of pregnancy, injury, radiation, obesity, menopause, and aging on the structure and function of pelvic soft tissues. Dr. Alperin is also actively engaged in the interdisciplinary translational studies focused on the application of acellular biomaterials for regeneration of pelvic soft tissues.
Michelle Oyen, PhD, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, and Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, USA.
Dr. Michelle L. Oyen is the inaugural Director of the new Center for Women’s Health Engineering (https://womenshealthengineering.wustl.edu/), based in the McKelvey School of Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to her current appointment, she was on the faculty at the University of Cambridge (2006–18) in the UK and then briefly at East Carolina University (2018–21). Michelle has degrees in Materials Science and Engineering (BS), Engineering Mechanics (MS), and a PhD in Biophysical Sciences. She has worked on many problems in tissue biomechanics and biomimetic materials. She has researched engineering approaches to pregnancy and women’s health for over twenty years, particularly in methods to prevent, diagnose, and intervene in preterm birth. Current research projects (https://www.oyenlab.org/) include multi-scale modeling of placenta function, microstructural fracture models for amniotic sac rupture, and physical properties of the healthy and pathological uterus.
