Title of project

Causes and CONseQUEnces of Metabolic DeRangement in Pregnancy – CONQUER

Abstract

I am applying for the Danish Diabetes and Endocrine Academy (DDEA) visiting professorship in 2023. Currently I am a Maternal-Fetal Medicine physician (M.D.), Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Tufts University School of Medicine and the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. I have a long-standing research interest in the longitudinal metabolic adaptations in pregnant women and the short and long-term effects on mothers and their offspring. My studies before, during and after pregnancy have included hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamps, stable isotopes, indirect calorimetry and body composition in women with normal glucose tolerance and gestational diabetes (GDM).

My published work in this area provides insight on the interpretation of pregnancy outcomes in women whose pregnancies are complicated by GDM, overweight and obesity. I am experienced in transdisciplinary translational metabolic research during pregnancy as well as large multicenter metabolic studies. I have had continuous NIH funding for over 35 years and have served on the Institute of Medicine Committees to reexamine the weight gain guidelines for pregnancy in 2008. I also served as the Co-Chair of the NIDDK on the Birth Cohort Workshop in 2010, examining the data relative to a better understanding of the prevention of obesity in offspring of obese women. In 2011, I was the cochair of the NICHD Vision workshop and a group leader of the NICHD Vision workshop group on the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD). In 2017 I was the co-chair of the NIH workshop on research gaps in GDM.

My interest in the DDEA visiting professorship is to continue and expand collaboration with Danish colleagues primarily at Aarhus University (AU) and Aarhus University Hospital (AUH), (Drs. Ulla Kampmann Opstrup and Per Glud Ovesen), but also at Odense University Hospital (Dorte Møller Jensen) and Rigshospitalet (Peter Damm and Elisabeth Mathiesen).. Over the years through the Diabetes in Pregnancy Study Group (DPSG) of the European Association for the study of diabetes (EASD), I have worked with many European investigators and have had their PhD students spend time in our Clinical Research facilities in Cleveland and Boston. The specific goals of the visiting professorship at are to expand our collaborative research in the area of stable isotopes and hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamps to better assess maternal metabolism in pregnancy. Further because neonatal adiposity at birth has a strong relationship with childhood obesity, I plan to use my expertise in neonatal body composition and use of the Pea Pod (air displacement plethysmography) to better characterize fetal growth with colleagues at AU/AUH.