David Peters
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Genetics
Preterm birth, meaning birth before 37 weeks of pregnancy, is a leading cause of death in children under five worldwide. Yet no test reliably flags at-risk pregnancies early in gestation.
- Fields
Genetics
Medicine & Clinical Research
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
preterm birth
preeclampsia
intrauterine growth restriction
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2029
What they work on
- Develop cell-free DNA methylation analysis of maternal plasma that predicts the clinical trajectory of pregnancies diagnosed with mild or severe preeclampsia.
- Develop cell-free DNA methylation methods that identify which fetuses affected by intrauterine growth restriction, or too-slow fetal growth, will have the poorest outcomes.
- Build a liquid biopsy screen administered between weeks 10 and 13 of gestation that flags pregnancies likely to end in preterm birth, using tissue-of-origin methylation signatures on circulating DNA fragments.
More about the research
Two related complications make the problem harder. In preeclampsia, a dangerous pregnancy condition involving high blood pressure, the course of the disease is hard to predict once diagnosed. In intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), where a fetus grows too slowly, it is impossible to tell early which fetuses will have the worst outcomes.
Why it matters
A simple blood test early in pregnancy could identify expectant mothers at high risk of preterm birth, who could then be offered closer monitoring and interventions that could be tested in those who need them most. Tests that forecast how preeclampsia or restricted fetal growth will progress could help clinicians manage these pregnancies, and the work could also clarify the biology underlying preterm birth.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Gari David Clifford
Emory University, GA·Biomedical Engineering
Test whether scores on VisMET, an eye-tracking memory test, predict global cognition on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment and flag preclinical Alzheimer's disease defined by spinal-fluid biomarkers in older adults.
Abhijit Patel
Yale University, CT·Medicine & Clinical Research
Map the order in which methylation changes in Epstein-Barr virus DNA and host B-cell gene promoters appear in blood before lymphoma is diagnosed, using banked plasma from a long-term cohort of people with HIV.
Karen Gibbins
Oregon Health & Science University, OR·Medicine & Clinical Research
Externally validate and update a clinical predictive model of individual placental dysfunction risk in a cohort of 640 pregnant people followed through 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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