Dr. Erin Ciampa and her research team published a new paper in the June 2026 Science Magazine that reveals novel insights into how placental metabolism during pregnancy is a driver of preterm birth. These results are an important first step to developing treatment to prevent preterm birth, which causes significant complications during and after childbirth.
Dr. Ciampa, lead author on the paper, says “The study has exciting implications for potential new therapies aimed at preventing preterm labor and optimizing patients for labor induction. Many thanks to my brilliant and dedicated colleagues and also to the patients who enthusiastically donated their placentas for research. Let’s keep closing the research gap in reproductive health.”
See the editor’s summary in Science Magazine below for a more complete description of the study, “Placental nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide modulates the timing of labor”:
Preterm birth is a major cause of pediatric morbidity and mortality, but prevention remains challenging because the causes of preterm labor are poorly understood and in most cases cannot be predicted. It is known from previous studies that the placenta is a highly active tissue that undergoes metabolic changes as pregnancy progresses. Ciampa et al. have now identified a major culprit in this placental aging process, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), a metabolite that is also associated with the aging of other organs (see the Perspective by Yoshioka and Imai). In experiments in mice, the authors demonstrated that metabolic exhaustion associated with the premature depletion of NAD+ could promote the onset of preterm labor, and supplementation of a NAD+ precursor helped prevent preterm labor and prolonged gestation.