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Technology and science have opened up several new treatment options for patients. The latest creation involves advancing hormone treatments for women by engineering ovarian tissues in the lab. Researchers from the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center's Institute for Regenerative Medicine announced that they have successfully created working artificial ovaries in the lab and believes that the tissues can be used as a natural hormone therapy option for women within the near future.

"Our goal is to develop a tissue - or cell-based hormone therapy - essentially an artificial ovary - to deliver sex hormones in a more natural manner than drugs," the senior author, Emmanuel C. Opara, Ph.D. said. Opara is a professor of regenerative medicine. "A bioartificial ovary has the potential to secrete hormones in a natural way based on the body's needs, rather than the patient taking a specific dose of drugs each day."

Although the hormone drug treatments used today are effective, these drugs are not recommended to be used over a long period of time because they might contribute to health complications, such as heart disease or breast cancer. By creating working ovarian tissues, the researchers hope that this option would provide patients with a more natural solution. Women can lose a significant amount of hormones due to chemotherapy or other types of radiation treatments due to cancer, menopause, or the physical removal of the ovaries. The lack of hormones can lead to uncomfortable side effects, such as hot flashes and infertility. If the artificial ovaries function like normal ovaries, they can provide a whole new kind of treatment.

The research team took two kinds of cells from the ovaries of rats that were just 21-days-old. They placed the cells in a capsule like object that was manufactured to be compatible with the human body. The capsule was then experimented on in the lab with two different hormones that both function to trigger the ovaries in producing the sex hormones. The researchers found that certain arrangements of the cells lead to a good level of secretion of estrogen. The capsules also released progesterone, inhibin and activin, hormones that are also responsible for monitoring the production of the sex hormones.

"Cells in the multilayer capsules were observed to function in similar fashion to native ovaries. The secretion of inhibin and activin suggests that these structures could potentially function as an artificial ovary by synchronizing with the body's innate control system," Opara said.

Although the research is still new, the team is optimistic that artificial ovaries can be used as hormone therapy in the near future.

The study was published in Biomaterials.