Researchers at Penn Medicine are pursuing a new mRNA-based therapy to explore the underlying causes of abnormal uterine bleeding and develop a treatment.
Kathleen O’Neill — a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and the program director of Penn Med’s Uterine Transplant Program — is leading a research program to treat abnormal uterine bleeding. The researchers are developing a vaginal gel that delivers mRNA into the endometrium to regulate the proteins that limit menstrual bleeding.
O’Neill emphasized the urgency of her team’s work, noting that while heavy menstrual bleeding is a common problem, affecting nearly “one in three women,” resources for addressing it are “incredibly limited.”
Heavy menstrual bleeding can often be an indication of health issues — such as “uterine fibroids, thyroid disease, bleeding disorders, and pituitary tumors” — but is often overlooked by health care officials. One of the greatest challenges in treating heavy menstrual bleeding lies in the absence of standardized benchmarks for what is “normal.” Many patients don’t realize their cycles fall outside typical parameters, and health care professionals often miss or underprioritize such symptoms.
Treatments using mRNA are well-known for their use in the development of COVID-19 vaccines. However, they have also shown promise for treating a variety of other diseases, including autoimmune diseases and cancers. The researchers plan to use this therapy treatment to extend the current use of lipid nanoparticle delivery of mRNA to the field of women’s health.
Drew Weissman, a professor of vaccine research in the Perelman School of Medicine, and Katalin Karikó, an adjunct professor of neurosurgery and a senior vice president at BioNTech, were the pioneers of the revolutionary mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines.
Jilian Melamed, a research assistant professor of infectious diseases at Penn who works in Weissman’s lab, is a co-investigator on this project, along with researchers from Harvard University and Rice University.
The project will be funded up to $5 million by the Missed Vital Sign, a women’s health program launched by Wellcome Leap that targets a reduction in waiting time before effective treatment — bringing the average time down from five years to five months — by treating menstruation as a routinely measured vital sign and advancing diagnostics and nonhormonal therapies.
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O’Neill expressed hope that this is a first step in eventually developing a new therapy for heavy menstrual bleeding that can be accessed at home — not one that is hormonal or requires surgery.
