Principal speaker
Dr Max Berry
Other speakers
Dr Deanne Skelly
Menzies Health Institute Queensland
Understanding Chronic Conditions Program Seminar
Topic 18: Heart, Mind and Body - Host: Assoc Prof Jason Peart
Abstracts
Dr Max Berry - Premature Celebration? The late effects of preterm birth
'Optimal' care pathways for pregnant women at risk of delivering their baby at extremes of gestational age are uncertain. Survival for babies born at 23 weeks gestation is possible, but there remain many uncertainties about the implications of resuscitating and offering neonatal intensive care to these high-risk infants. Compounded with this, there is little robust long-term data on the health outcomes for these children. New Zealand's collection of governmental administrative and clinical datasets has recently become available for research purposes through the government's integrated data infrastructure. This newly created linked data source contains data on a variety of areas, including education, family and household structure, health and safety, linked maternity records and hospitalisation datasets. Understanding the impact of early life events is essential to provide evidence-based prognoses, and to accurately counsel families about potential long-term outcomes for their child.
Dr Deanne Skelly - Leptin's control of development
Emerging research has highlighted the importance of leptin in fetal growth and development independent of its essential role in the maintenance of hunger and satiety through the brain. Alterations in maternal-placental-fetal leptin exchange may modify the development of the fetus. Specifically, alterations in plasma leptin during development may be associated with an increased risk of developing a number of adulthood diseases, including cardiovascular, metabolic, and renal diseases via altered fetal development and organogenesis. Our research focuses on the role of leptin in renal development, and uses a model of reduced offspring leptin to investigate key gene targets.
Biographies
Dr Max Berry - obtained her BSc in Developmental Neurobiology from the University of London prior to completion of her medical training. In 2008, she was awarded an HRC Fellowship for her PhD studies at the Liggins Institute examining the long-term cardio metabolic consequences of preterm birth in sheep. Dr Berry joined the Paediatric department at the University of Otago, Wellington in 2012 as a Consultant Neonatal Intensive Care Specialist and Senior Lecturer in Paediatrics. She has been awarded research grants by the HRC, MBIE, RACP and the University of Otago. Her research interests include the impact of preterm birth and the perinatal environment on health in adult life. She also works to support robust inter-sector collaborations to promote translational biomedical research, and the integration of basic sciences with advances in perinatal and critical care medicine.
Dr Deanne Skelly (nee Hryciw) - obtained her PhD in Cellular Physiology in 2000 from the University of South Australia. She then had postdoctoral fellowship training at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine, The University of Sydney and The University of Queensland. As an academic, Dr Skelly was the recruited to Victoria University, then The University of Melbourne, Department of Physiology. Dr Skelly currently leads a small research group focused on the role of the endocannabinoid system in developmental programming. Dr Skelly has published 52 manuscripts and is the current National Secretary for the Australian Physiological Society.
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