Grant Project Title : Establishment and characterization of miscarriage-specific human trophoblast stem cells Grant Amount : $40,000 Significance : 750,000 to 1,000,000 miscarriages happen in the United States annually. For couples who experience pregnancy loss, the cause is usually cytogenetic in 60% of cases, such as trisomy and monosomy. However, the cause of the remaining euploid miscarriages is usually not found. Therefore, there is a significant need for more studies to investigate new causes of human pregnancy loss, especially recurrent miscarriages, where 50% of couples will not find a cause. To elucidate the molecular mechanisms of miscarriages in humans, new tools are necessary to study these events as up until now; one significant barrier is the limited amount of tissue, mainly chorionic villi, available for analysis. Prior studies on early human placentation have primarily relied on transformed trophoblast cell lines or primary human trophoblast cells purified from the early placenta, which cannot be propagated. Therefore, a proliferating primary trophoblast cell culture system to study human miscarriage is an essential technical advancement to overcome these past research ...