Eavesdropping on the first trimester: using new technology to better understand early maternal-placental crosstalk, Conversation with Dr. Shirley Greenbaum

 As scientists have come to learn more about serious pregnancy complications like preeclampsia and premature birth, they believe that some of those complicated issues are born in the very earliest days of pregnancy. But the goings-on in the early first trimester have been a mystery for most of human history. Recent technological advancements, like the special microscope used by the researcher I talk with today, uses techniques that attempt to "essentially" add audio to the video, allowing us to know more about both what cells are present in these early weeks (with a focus on maternal immune cells and different types of EVTs) and what kinds of conversations they may be having with each other.A Spatially Resolved Timeline of the Human Maternal-Fetal Interface: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06298-9