Laura Brown, MD – Assistant Professor Pediatrics, Neonatology
Project Title: Functional and structural adaptations of fetal skeletal muscle to nutrient and anabolic hormone deficiencies under conditions of placental insufficiency and IUGR
Research Areas: Fetal and neonatal metabolism and growth; intrauterine growth restriction; fetal skeletal muscle development; fetal origins of adult disease.
Djuana Harvell, PhD
Project Title: Pregnancy-associated breast cancer and tumor aggressiveness
Research Areas: Hormones, Breast Cancer and Treatment Resistance
Carrie McCurdy, PhD – Assistant Professor Pediatrics, Neurology
Project Title: Fetal Programming of Skeletal Muscle Metabolism
Research Areas: How maternal obesity during pregnancy influences the programming of fetal mitochondrial metabolism and fuel sensing in skeletal muscle.Changes in the fetal environment that reduce skeletal muscle metabolism or fuel sensing are likely to result in an increased risk to the offspring of developing obesity and metabolic complications (e.g.; insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes) in childhood.
Project Title: Impact of acute serum NEFA manipulations on cardiac and exercise function
Research Areas: 1) The role of fatty acid elevation in cardiovascular risk and dysfunction in insulin resistant states 2) sex-based differences in susceptibility to insulin resistance, endothelial dysfunction, and cardiac impairment in response to serum fatty acid elevation and in diabetes |