Embryo Project Encyclopedia

The figure depicts three different molecular structures of estrogen found in mammals’ that differ by the arrangement of bonds and side groups. The molecular structures of the three estrogen molecules differ by the arrangement of chemical bonds and side groups attached to the core steroid structure, cholesterol, which contains three cyclohexane rings and one cyclopentane ring. Compared to the molecular structure of estriol, the molecular structure of estradiol is missing one oxygen-hydrogen or OH group, and estrone lacks the OH group, and one hydrogen molecule that results in a double bonded oxygen atom. These steroid hormones bind to specific cell receptor molecules and induce transcriptional changes in cells. The production of estriol increases during pregnancy, estradiol production increases during stages of the menstrual cycle, and estrone levels increase during menopause. The differing bonds and chemical arrangements enable scientists to determine the different concentrations of the molecules.

Thomas Joseph King Jr. was a developmental biologist who, with fellow scientist Robert Briggs, pioneered a method of transplanting nuclei from blastula cells into fresh egg cells lacking nuclei. This method, dubbed nuclear transplantation, facilitated King's studies on cancer cell development. King's work was instrumental for the development of cloning of fish, insects, and mammals.

First marketed in the US 1875, Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound was an herbal medicine used by women to relieve menstrual discomfort and menopausal symptoms in women. The herbal compound was invented by Lydia Estes Pinkham in 1873 in her home kitchen in Lynn, Massachusetts. Pinkham created the compound by mixing alcohol with roots and herbs. The compound was patented, packaged, and distributed by the Mrs. Lydia Pinkham Medicine Company in 1876. The Mrs. Lydia Pinkham Medicine Company advertised the compound in many US newspapers and magazines, causing Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound to become a household name and making treatments for female reproductive discomfort mainstream in the US.

Katharina Dorothea Dalton was a physician in England in the twentieth century who defined premenstrual syndrome (PMS) as a cluster of symptoms suspected to begin one to two weeks before menstruation and disappear upon the onset of a new menstrual cycle. Prior to Dalton, there was little research on pre-menstrual issues and those that existed linked the problem to excessive water retention or estrogen. Dalton hypothesized that PMS resulted from a deficiency in the hormone progesterone and advocated for hormone replacement therapy to lessen the symptoms of the syndrome. Dalton established an early PMS clinic in London, England, and she testified on behalf of women in over fifty court cases claiming to have committed crimes while suffering from PMS.

Published in 1971, Adenocarcinoma of the Vagina: Association of Maternal Stilbestrol Therapy with Tumor Appearance in Young Women, by Arthurs L. Herbst and colleagues, was the first piece of literature connecting maternal use of the drug diethylstilbestrol (DES), also called stilbestrol, with the development of a rare and severe form of vaginal cancer in young women. Diethylstilbestrol was later classified as an endocrine disruptor, a substance that disrupts the hormonal function of the body in those exposed to it during development or later in life. After Herbst and his team established the connection between DES and the occurrence of breast cancer, cervical cancer, infertility, and reproductive abnormalities, the US federal government banned use the drug for pregnant women. The article was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

NovaSure is a device for endometrial ablation, which is a procedure that removes the endometrium, that the US Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, approved for use on 28 September 2001. Endometrium is the tissue that lines the uterus. NovaSure destroys the endometrium by sending electric beams at the endometrium. Hologic, a medical technology company concerned with women’s health, developed NovaSure to treat menorrhagia, or heavy bleeding during menstruation. Menorrhagia is a common symptom of endometriosis. Endometriosis is the growth of the endometrium outside of the uterus. While NovaSure is not a treatment that doctors use to directly treat endometriosis, the procedure may help alleviate heavy bleeding during menstruation, which may improve a patient’s quality of life as heavy menstrual bleeding is often associated with high levels of anxiety and low levels of confidence.

Edward Charles Dodds researched the function and effects of natural and artificial hormones on the endocrine system in England during the twentieth century. Though he first worked with hormones such as insulin, Dodds focused on the effects of estrogen in the body and how to replicate those effects with artificial substances. In 1938, along with chemist Robert Robinson, Dodds synthesized the first synthetic estrogen called diethylstilbestrol. Despite the wide use of diethylstilbestrol to treat a variety of hormonal problems like miscarriages during pregnancy and menopause, Dodds argued against the use of synthetic substances in the human body due to their unknown effects. Just before Dodds's death, his hypotheses were confirmed when researchers showed that people exposed to diethylstilbestrol often developed cancer. Dodds was one of the first researchers to investigate the endocrine or hormone system in humans, and his research led to the creation of other synthetic hormones used in contraceptive pills and hormone replacements.

In the early twentieth century US, Jean Paul Pratt and Edgar Allen conducted clinical experiments on women who had abnormal menstrual cycles. During the clinical tests, researchers injected the hormone estrogen into their patients to alleviate their menstrual ailments, which ranged from irregular cycles to natural menopause. The hormone estrogen plays a prominent role in the menstrual cycle by signaling the tissue lining the uterus (endometrium) to thicken in preparation for possible pregnancy. In their clinical tests, Pratt and Allen showed that injecting estrogen into female human subjects restored their normal menstrual cycle, removed symptoms such as hot flashes, and caused uterine tissue to grow. The clinical tests conducted by Pratt and Allen provided experimental evidence and justification for the injection of isolated estrogen in women to alleviate, for a short amount of time, different menstrual problems, and it contributed to later hormone therapy research.

Lydia Estes Pinkham invented and sold Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound, a medicinal tonic used to treat menstrual discomfort and promote female reproductive health in general, in the US during the nineteenth century. Pinkham also founded Mrs. Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Company, a business that sold natural remedies for women’s health issues. Throughout her life, Pinkham acted as an authority on female wellness, writing medical pamphlets about female anatomy and reproductive processes. In those pamphlets, Pinkham addressed female medical issues that physicians did not frequently discuss with their patients. Pinkham’s advertising techniques and her products helped women learn about their reproductive anatomy and processes and helped ease menstruation.

Sindell v. Abbott Laboratories was a 1980 California case that established the doctrine of market share liability for personal injury cases. For such liability, when a drug causes personal injury and the manufacturer of the drug cannot be identified, each producer is responsible for paying the settlement in proportion to the percentage of the market they supplied. Judith Sindell and Maureen Rogers brought the case against the producers of diethylstilbestrol (DES), which their mothers had taken during pregnancy to prevent miscarriage and other complications. Sindell and Rogers alleged that their mothers' ingestions of DES during pregnancy later caused Sindell and Rogers to develop cancers at the onset of puberty, but they could not identify the specific manufacturer of the drug. The market share liability ruling in Sindell allowed millions of DES-affected individuals to seek restitution for reproductive cancers caused by prenatal exposure to DES.