A Japanese research team said Thursday that it has become the world’s first to create miniaturized organs closely resembling the human placenta in structure and functions.

The team, including researchers of Tokyo Medical and Dental University, expects that the human placenta organoids, the miniature version, can be applied to research to understand how viruses infect the placenta and to develop safe new drugs.

The team’s research results were published in the online edition of the British journal Nature Communications.