Preeclampsia is a crippler and a killer. It’s a rise in an expectant mother’s blood pressure late in pregnancy. It can lead to seizures, strokes, even death of the mother. The fetus gets deprived of oxygen. The treatment with blood pressure medications staves off problems for a few days, but birth will be premature, if the mother and child survive.
Worldwide each year, 70,000 mothers and 500,000 babies die. Many of the surviving children have developmental or metabolic disorders. The condition is woefully under-researched.
A good addition in research is now offered at Beech Biotech and BioInnovation Institute. The team is looking at proteins in the mother’s blood. One, called Flt-1 for short, is a receptor for two other proteins: VEGF that keeps the mother’s blood vessels healthy and PIGF that helps with growth of the placenta. Preeclampsia hits when the placenta produces a genetically determined shorter version of the Flt-1 receptor. It sponges up VEGF and PIGF, removing a lot from circulation, while Flt-1 itself floats free from the cells where it should act.
The research team has designed an antibody that gloms onto the excess receptor protein and that stays on the mother’s side of the placenta to reduce risk to the fetus. It’s a welcome focus on women’s health.
This has been an outreach activity of the Las Cruces Academy, viewable at GreatSchools.org
Source: BII sponsored content in Science, 16 October 2025
Image: preeclampsia.org
