University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine will conduct the Northeast's first clinical trial of uterine transplants, to provide women with Uterine Factor Infertility (UFI) - an irreversible form of female infertility that affects as many as 5 percent of women worldwide and 50,000 women in the United States - with a new path to parenthood.

The Uterine Transplantation for Uterine Factor Infertility (UNTIL) trial is the third of its kind in the United States.

More than 30 uterine transplants have been completed across the world including in Brazil, China, the Czech Republic, Germany, Sweden, India, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and at two clinics in the United States. Though the procedure is still experimental, a team in Sweden who completed the world's first uterine transplant has successfully delivered eight babies from women who received a uterus from a friend or family member.

Following an extensive evaluation, participants in the UNTIL trial will be followed for several years by a multidisciplinary team of specialists with expertise in transplant, obstetrics & gynecology, clinical trials, bioethics, nursing, social work, psychology, pathology, and infectious diseases. More than 35 providers will be involved in each participant's care over the course of a five- to 10-year period.

The UNTIL trial is a joint effort between Penn Medicine's department of Obstetrics & Gynecology and the Penn Transplant Institute. The procedure is part of the highly specialized vascularized composite allotransplantation (VCA) field, which in recent years has allowed for the development of advanced procedures that require the transplantation of multiple tissues such as muscle, bone, nerve, and skin, as a functional unit, such as hands and the face.