PI/Director: Surendra Sharma, MD, PhD
Pregnancy is a critical time in a woman’s life and is recognized as a window into her future health. Although the overwhelming majority of patients have a healthy outcome, pregnancy complications have been on the rise globally. New and emerging data strongly suggest significant maternal health consequences after pregnancies complicated by preeclampsia, diabetes and preterm birth. Likewise, children born to mothers experiencing these conditions are at significant risk of developing chronic diseases, including neurological, metabolic and cardiovascular disorders. Surprisingly, there is still little information about the causes of these pregnancy-associated disorders, as well as prediction and treatment.
The programmatic and scientific goals of this COBRE for Reproductive Health are to develop research infrastructure for a center that supports a multidisciplinary, translational and innovative program in women’s reproductive health. This is the first COBRE of its size and the only one to focus on women’s health. The overarching research goals of this COBRE include the use of well-defined, pre-clinical models to understand mechanisms of preeclampsia, gestational diabetes and prematurity; identification of functional predictive biomarkers; and application of contemporary computational approaches to enhance understanding of the networks and pathways underlying these devastating pregnancy complications.