My research focuses on the maternal determinants of fetal development and offspring health. I am interested in studying how the maternal metabolic milieu communicates the maternal experience with the developing fetus, specifically focusing on the interactions between maternal obesity and environmental exposures. I have worked extensively in rodent pregnancy models to study the effects of maternal diet or exposure to environmental endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) on the epigenetic regulation of energy metabolism in offspring. Driven by findings from these studies, my current research in a human pregnancy cohort has two primary aims: 1) To assess the relationship between gestational exposure to several phthalates/phenols and pregnancy estrogen and testosterone status. An additional goal of this aim is to determine whether maternal adiposity and/or body fat distribution modify the above relationships; and 2) To determine whether exposure to these same chemicals alters the fetal supply of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFAs) or the supply of other lipid classes critical for fetal development (using a lipidomics approach). An additional question within this aim is whether the aforementioned relationship between EDC exposures and estrogen status mediates the proposed relationships between EDCs and LC-PUFAs/lipids. My long-term goal is to leverage data from the human cohort to inspire questions in animal models, and to utilize animal models to unravel the mechanisms behind the findings in pregnant women and their babies.
