Investigating the physiological role of lipids and lipid metabolites in influencing maternal and child health outcomes

Lipids and their metabolites are important as structural components and signalling molecules, as well as providing energy during pregnancy. Lipid dysregulation is associated with pregnancy complications such as gestational diabetes, hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and preterm birth, and altered programming of child cardiometabolic health and neurodevelopmental trajectories. However, the precise role of lipids and their metabolic pathways in influencing maternal and child health outcomes remains less understood.
This project aims to examine the relationship of lipids and their metabolites with maternal and child health outcomes. An integrative biostatistics and bioinformatics approach will be applied to available data (eg. clinical, metabolic, neurodevelopmental outcomes, multi-omics) from ongoing mother-offspring cohorts to determine lipid dynamics during preconception and pregnancy and their association with various health outcomes of both the mother and child. Additionally, there is the potential to explore lipid metabolic pathways of interest in a separate cohort of samples using a range of laboratory techniques including molecular biology to investigate gene expression changes, in vitro cultures for functional analysis and LCMS to analyse lipids and their metabolites.
Enhanced understanding of the role lipids and lipid metabolites play in influencing maternal and child outcomes will enable the identification of lipid biomarkers and therapeutic targets, which can be used in predicting pregnancy complications and adverse developmental programming and developing novel interventions to improve maternal and child health outcomes in the long-term.