Designing an in vitro Placental Barrier Model for Antibody Transfer Experiments; Investigating Pharmaceutical Design as a Source of Racial Healthcare Disparities 3 views

While significant evolution of pharmaceuticals and other therapeutic technologies has taken place over the past several decades, millions in the United States still suffer from a lack of equitable access to these technologies. In particular, racial and ethnic minorities tend to suffer from relatively worse healthcare outcomes across a broad variety of conditions in large part due to inaccessibility of therapeutics. My sociotechnical research paper examines how pharmaceutical companies play a role in driving this process with certain practices used in the development and marketing of drugs. This issue is especially important for me to consider because my technical research project involves the design of a system intended to be used for pharmaceutical research and development, and I want to ensure that potential downstream results of my technical project can benefit disadvantaged groups affected by pharmaceutical industry practices. Globally, infectious diseases are one of the leading causes of infant mortality. One strategy emerging to combat this issue is maternal vaccines, which are administered to the mother during pregnancy and rely on the transport of protective antibodies across the placenta to the fetus. However, some details of the mechanisms underpinning this transfer are poorly understood, and gaining insight into these processes could potentially lead to the development of new maternal vaccines and better optimization of existing maternal vaccines. My technical project involved the creation of an in vitro model of the placental barrier for use in research. The model consisted of two different types of cells present in the placenta (syncytiotrophoblast and endothelial cells) separated using a transwell membrane. This setup allows transfer across the syncytiotrophoblast layer to be studied independently from transfer across the entire placenta, potentially enabling study of transfer mechanisms specific to one layer of the placenta. It is a known issue that racial and ethnic minorities experience worse healthcare outcomes across a broad spectrum of health conditions in the United States. While there are a large number of factors which contribute to this problem, one often overlooked contributor to these racial disparities is the pharmaceutical development and marketing process. My sociotechnical research project examined how pharmaceutical companies are contributing to racial disparities in healthcare outcomes in the United States due to profit motives which have been largely left unchecked by government oversight. The research uses case studies involving conditions with known racial disparities such as sickle cell disease and diabetes mellitus to illustrate how pharmaceutical industry practices perpetuate racial disparities and explain why companies are motivated to do so. Using the framework of Social Construction of Technology (Pinch & Bijker, 1984), I argued that the government should be responsible for ensuring pharmaceutical companies develop and market drugs in a way that allows them to be accessed equitably, and offered normative recommendations for changes in regulation that could improve accessibility of drugs for disadvantaged groups. While my technical research project created a model for the placental barrier, there is a large amount of future work that still needs to be done to use it to make meaningful change in vaccine development. Future researchers will need to make discoveries using this platform by studying features such as antibody receptors and endocytosis pathways. My sociotechnical research project identified specific problems with the pharmaceutical development pipeline and offered recommendations for government action to address these issues. Further advocacy needs to be made for solutions to be implemented, and other non-governmental organizations will likely need to be involved as well to make meaningful change. I would like to acknowledge the support given to me by those who helped me create the contents of this research portfolio, without whom this work would not have been possible. For my technical research project, I want to thank my Capstone advisor, Dr. Sepideh Dolatshahi, as well as my graduate student advisors, Ania Sawik and Caitlin Sullivan, for helping guide my work, training me in techniques I needed, and giving me invaluable feedback and ideas. For my sociotechnical project, I want to thank my STS professor, Dr. Caitlyn Wylie, for helping me refine my ideas into a cohesive paper and shaping my ethical thinking.

BS (Bachelor of Science)

placental barrier; cell culture model; placental antibody transfer; pharmaceuticals; racial disparities

School of Engineering and Applied Science Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering Technical Advisor: Sepideh Dolatshahi STS Advisor: Caitlin Wylie

English

2026-05-10