UC San Diego Joins NIH Stillbirth Research Consortium

Researchers from UC San Diego are part of the newly-funded NIH Stillbirth Research Consortium.

Researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine have been selected to join the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Stillbirth Research Consortium. Launched with more than $37 million in funding over the next five years, the consortium includes four research centers and a data coordinating center.

The UC San Diego Center for Stillbirth Prevention will receive $6.8 million in funding. The center will collaborate with centers at Columbia University in New York, the University of Utah, and Oregon Health & Science University, along with the data coordinating center at RTI International to support research seeking to identify the root causes of stillbirth and inform evidence-based strategies in an effort to reduce the number of preventable stillbirths in the United States.

The new center at UC San Diego will be jointly housed within the Center for Perinatal Discovery, a focal point for collaborative research between the Departments of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences  (OB/GYN) and Pathology and the Division of Neonatology, which specializes in identifying the causes of placental dysfunction that underlie both maternal and neonatal adverse outcomes; and the Center for OB/GYN Research Innovation, with patients recruited through OB/GYN clinics.  The overarching goal of the new center is to study fetal growth restriction, a significant risk factor for stillbirth, with the ultimate goal of predicting and preventing stillbirth.

Stillbirth, which is the death of a fetus at or after 20 weeks of pregnancy, can occur in the womb or during labor and delivery. Each year in the United States more than 23,000 stillbirths are reported. Of those, more than 60 percent remain unexplained. Research has shown there are several possible causes for stillbirth, including problems with the placenta, congenital anomalies and infection.

“The placenta is a very under-appreciated organ. Its function is crucial to appropriate fetal growth and development during pregnancy,” said Mana Parast, M.D., Ph.D., professor in the Department of Pathology and director of perinatal pathology in the Division of Anatomic Pathology.  “We currently don’t have any way of knowing when the placenta is malfunctioning or not meeting the needs of the baby.  We hope that through this project, we can better identify at-risk patients, in order to prevent stillbirth.”

This funding will provide critical support for two projects at UC San Diego. The first project’s goal, coordinated through the Center for OBGYN Research Innovation, is to identify maternal serum biomarkers of placental dysfunction to develop a test of placental dysfunction, which can identify fetal growth restriction, a significant risk factor for stillbirth, according to Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman, M.D., chair of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences.

With the second project, researchers will use a combination of the above named biomarkers, together with psycho-social determinants to construct a prediction model of adverse pregnancy outcomes, including stillbirth. Using a combination of the maternal, placental and neonatal findings they hope to best identify which pregnancies are at risk of stillbirth.

“One of the Center for Perinatal Discovery’s strengths is with identifying causes of placental dysfunction,” said Parast. “UC San Diego has been long known for studying the placenta, starting with Dr. Kurt Benirschke, one of the founding members of the School of Medicine. We are continuing his legacy to identify and use placenta-derived biomarkers of adverse pregnancy outcomes, to improve care for our patients.”

In addition to Parast and Gyamfi-Bannerman, the Center for Stillbirth Prevention will include experts beyond maternal-fetal medicine specialists and placental pathologists. The team includes Karen Mestan, M.D., professor and chief of the Division of Neonatology in the Department of Pediatrics UC San Diego School of Medicine and Rady Children’s Health; Raymond Suhandynata, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Pathology and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences; Suzi Hong, Ph.D., professor and associate dean at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Longevity Science; Marni Jacobs, Ph.D., assistant professor in OB/GYN and a perinatal epidemiologist; and Ina Stelzer, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Pathology and a reproductive immunologist.

“We are optimistic on the potential outcomes of this research center,” said Gyamfi-Bannerman. “The expertise of the whole team will be greater than the sum of its parts, allowing us to think outside the box, and advance this field in a short time-period.”