Lacey Heinsberg
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
Childhood obesity raises the risk of chronic disease later in life, so finding its earliest biological roots could open the door to early prevention. Pacific Islanders have the world's highest risk of obesity-related complications.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Genetics
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
childhood obesity
infant body composition
adiposity
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Use untargeted metabolomics on samples from Samoan infants to uncover the biochemical effects of the CREBRF obesity variant rs373863828, and how behavior and environment such as diet and sleep modify them.
- Identify metabolic signatures underlying fat mass, lean mass, bone mass and weight-for-age, measured by DXA scans, across the first two years of life in the Foafoaga o le Ola cohort.
- Apply these metabolomic methods to study early-life fat gain (adiposity) in a U.S. sample of infants and children.
More about the research
In Pacific Islander adults, one genetic variant (rs373863828) in the gene CREBRF (CREB3 Regulatory Factor) raises body mass index more than any other common variant. Puzzlingly, the same variant protects against diabetes, so its biological role is unclear. Obesity linked to the variant is not visible at birth but appears later in childhood.
Why it matters
Obesity is appearing earlier in life, especially in high-risk groups such as Pacific Islanders. Learning how a powerful obesity gene variant and factors such as diet, sleep and income shape infant metabolism could reveal early windows to prevent childhood obesity. It could also guide precision public health approaches that improve health across the lifespan.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jonathan Purnell
Oregon Health & Science University, OR·Public Health & Epidemiology
Compare birth size for gestational age, infant weight gain and BMI through age six in children of 2,120 women who had bariatric surgery before pregnancy versus 21,200 children of women without surgery, matched on pre-surgery or pre-pregnancy BMI.
Jigna Dharod
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, NC·Public Health & Epidemiology
Test whether the SMile intervention, combining cash or breast-pump incentives with peer-counselor home visits, raises breastfeeding self-efficacy and exclusive breastfeeding for six months among 120 Hispanic WIC mothers in a randomized trial.
Zorimar Rivera-Nunez
Rutgers University-New Brunswick, NJ·Public Health & Epidemiology
Measure prenatal exposure to zearalenone (ZEN), a fungal estrogen-like contaminant, and its metabolites in TIDES pregnant women, and relate it to estrogen production and metabolomic profiles during pregnancy.
The school
University of Pittsburgh: 83 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 403 research doctorates a year.
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