Research Description
Seed grant project title: How to Prevent Cardiac Dysfunction in Children of Obese Pregnant Women: The Mechanistic Role of Fetal Circulating microRNAs
Current research focus: Maternal obesity complicates >25% of pregnancies and increases maternal and infant morbidity, including causing fetal and infant cardiac dysfunction and long-term cardiovascular risk in the adult offspring. The objective of Dr. Vaughan's project is to identify the signals that induce cardiac dysfunction in fetuses of obese women by looking at cord plasma. The long-term goal of his work is to develop interventions to prevent perinatal morbidity in obese women and their children to interrupt the vicious cycle that transmits cardiometabolic disease across generations.
