Penn State's 'Ex-Utero' Project Uses Art and Science to Explore the Placenta and Regenerative Medicine

At Penn State, a sculptor and a documentary filmmaker are working alongside biomedical engineers on an unusual research project: studying human placentas to explore both the science and the future of human reproduction. Cristin Millett, a professor of art in the university's College of Arts and Architecture, has performed cannulation -- inserting a catheter needle into a placenta's umbilical vein -- dozens of times as part of the project, called Ex-Utero.

Ex-Utero is an interdisciplinary project that has run for five years, bringing together Penn State's College of Arts and Architecture, the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences and the College of Engineering, along with the University of Western Australia's School of Human Sciences. It examines ectogenesis -- the as-yet unrealised development of an embryo outside the uterus -- and its biological and social implications.

With help from biomedical engineering students and scientists at Penn State's College of Engineering and the Huck Institutes' Sartorius Cell Culture Facility, the team has developed a system to convert a section of umbilical cord into a biological scaffolding material that could eventually be used in tissue regeneration, a step toward advancing regenerative medicine.

Millett works with documentary filmmaker Cindy White, a researcher affiliated with the College of Arts and Architecture and the Huck Institutes, to turn the science into multimedia installations -- sculptures, visual documentation and experimental films -- exploring the placenta's biological traits and cultural significance, including the possibility that the organ could one day become vestigial as reproductive technology advances. "Although ectogenesis exists in the realm of the impossible, in a rapidly evolving world its ethical, cultural, political and philosophical implications are worth exploring," Millett said.