New mRNA injection is step forward in 'quest' to find preeclampsia cure

A pregnant woman is shown sat at a chair next to a table. She is wearing a blood pressure monitoring cuff on her left arm, which is outstretched on the table. The image is cropped so that she cannot be seen above her shoulders. .

An mRNA therapy could treat the potentially deadly pregnancy disorder preeclampsia, which currently has no cure, a new study in rodents finds.

In preeclampsia, pregnant people develop persistently high blood pressure that can lead to organ damage, causing protein to appear in the urine and sometimes organ failure. The condition affects between 3% and 5% of pregnancies, usually around 20 weeks after conception, although it can also occur after birth. Preeclampsia is responsible for more than 70,000 maternal deaths and 500,000 fetal deaths worldwide each year.