Elucidation and Validation of the role of Transporters in the Placenta, Lactating Mammary Gland, Developing Gut, and Blood Brain Barrier

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is seeking to advance its mission of supporting maternal, fetal, and child health by continuing to enhance the understanding of maternal, fetal, and child exposure to nutrients, metabolites, medications, supplements, microbiome-derived products, and environmental chemicals. This will be done by supporting a second phase of the Transporter Elucidation Network (TEN). The initiative is expected to support a mechanistic understanding of transporter function, polarity, kinetics, and transformation capacity relevant to pregnancy, lactation, infant nutrition, pediatric pharmacology, and neurodevelopment. • The grant authority for this is 42 U.S.C. § 241 • The initiative will establish perinatal multi-barrier transport network frameworks to clarify how transporters and local biotransformation regulate these processes • The initiative will develop standards, resources, models, and prototype multi-compartment approaches spanning maternal gut, placenta, lactating mammary epithelium, infant gut, and infant blood-brain barrier • The initiative will provide community resources for future integrated studies of perinatal exposure, risk, and intervention across interlinked maternal, fetal, and infant systems • The initiative will strengthen coordination among investigators, accelerate dissemination of tools, and advance human-based, developmentally relevant transporter research and workforce development