Long-Acting Degradable Implants for Endometriosis Treatment
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Women’s Health Research at Yale Initiates New Pilot Projects
Research examining health conditions unique to women, more prevalent in women, or affecting women differently than men have been at the heart of Women’s Health Research at Yale since its founding in 1998. The center’s innovative Pilot Project Program is one essential mechanism for promoting such research by providing competitive funding to faculty investigators with new and important projects for improving the health of women.
Recently, two year-long projects were selected by the center’s interdisciplinary Scientific Review Committee composed of Yale scientists, which reviews all proposals submitted to Women’s Health Research at Yale. The 2024 research awards are “Long-Acting Degradable Implants for Endometriosis Treatment” and “Mobile Care for Women with a History of Justice Involvement.”
“Both of these pilot projects have the potential to determine how best to respond to critical concerns for women,” said Carolyn M. Mazure, PhD, Norma Weinberg Spungen and Joan Lebson Bildner Professor of Women’s Health Research, professor of psychiatry and psychology, and Director of Women’s Health Research at Yale.
Long-Acting Degradable Implants for Endometriosis Treatment
This year’s Wendy U. and Thomas C. Naratil Pioneer Award will provide renowned Bioengineer W. Mark Saltzman, PhD, the opportunity to develop and test long-acting degradable implants designed to treat endometriosis – a painful condition that can also affect the capacity to become pregnant. Endometriosis is a medical condition that only affects women, where tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside of the uterus. As endometriosis most commonly starts in young women, it often interferes with educational opportunities and career performance.
Saltzman’s research team includes Hugh Taylor, MD, Anita O’Keeffe Young Professor and Chair, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, who has long studied endometriosis. Together, they will determine if endometriosis can be treated noninvasively with a specific estrogen-blocking drug by delivery through a manufactured, degradable, implantable device. Historically, endometriosis was managed by prescribing an estrogen-blocking birth control pill or by invasive surgeries.
“Dr. Saltzman is certainly one of the leading bioengineering figures in this country who has designed amazing drug delivery pathways. We have drugs that we can use for endometriosis, but getting them close to the source of the disease and released in a sustained fashioned has been a major challenge,” said Taylor. “I’m thrilled about our collaboration to engineer a degradable device to slowly deliver a drug right where we want it. It has the potential to be a major advance in the field.”
The team will manufacture the device using polymers – large molecules composed of repeating structural units that are either natural, like DNA or proteins, or synthetic, like plastic and nylon. The three phases of this pilot study include, first, engineering the polymer device and determining the proper dose of the estrogen blocker; discovering the optimal placement for the degradable device; and third, examining the intervention’s efficacy and safety. The device will release the estrogen-blocking drug slowly over time. This would be a novel application of an already FDA-approved drug in the treatment of endometriosis.
“Funding from Women’s Health Research at Yale is a proven method to bring next technology, new solutions, and new innovation forward,” said Saltzman, the Goizueta Foundation Professor for Chemical and Biomedical Engineering. “The goal of the Pilot Project Program is to get you enough of a research runway so that you can prove to other funders the potential impact of your work, enabling you to continue to develop an intervention, with the ultimate goal of getting it to the women who need it most. This Pilot Project Program award gives us a tremendous advantage.”
For more information, read the original press release.
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