AMRF Project Grant 2024
Congratulations to Department of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Newborn Health researchers who were successfully awarded AMRF Project Grant 2024.
Dr Amber Kennedy
Childhood outcomes after various IVF techniques
“More than 12 million children have been conceived globally with the assistance of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). Some studies suggest these children have an increased risk of congenital abnormalities, autism spectrum disorder, developmental-delay and intellectual disability. Educational and school-age developmental outcomes following IVF conception have not yet been adequately characterised. Using state-wide, linked population data from Victoria, Australia, we investigated the school-age developmental and educational outcomes for children born following IVF assisted conception. The first analysis of this body of work examined two separate assessments of school-age development and educational outcomes among 585,659 children, including 11,059 children who were conceived via IVF. We found no difference in school-age childhood developmental and educational outcomes between IVF and spontaneously conceived children. With this grant we plan to further this project by updating the linkage to access additional data from more recent outcome years. This will allow us to investigate outcomes related to specific IVF techniques (e.g., intracytoplasmic sperm injection, oocyte vitrification).”
Dr Ishara Atukorala
Biomarkers of human neurodevelopment
“ The project is designed to explore amniotic fluid derived extracellular vesicles as a tool to understand human development and related complications, with special focus on fetal neurodevelopment.”
Dr Natalie Binder
Treatments for the prevention of preterm birth
Approximately 13.4 million babies are born preterm globally per annum. Prematurity can have serious and lasting effects on health and quality of life, even resulting in death. Current therapeutic options for preterm birth work to stop contractions of the uterus but fail to address the mechanism driving those contractions, which might explain why their effectiveness is limited. In this project we will investigate novel biological therapeutics for their ability to neutralise the inflammatory factors that drive preterm birth. We will test these therapeutics in our laboratory models for their ability to stop contractions and reduce inflammation in pieces of donated human uterus (collected at c-section) and stop or delay preterm birth in our mouse model.
Dr Elif Kadife
Rescuing implantation failure by enhancing placentation
Pregnancy loss and complications often result from defective embryo implantation and poor placental development in the first trimester. Despite efforts, there has been limited success in improving pregnancy outcomes. Our research focuses on a growth-regulating protein crucial for cell fate determination and placental health. By modulating its activity, we aim to enhance implantation rates and placental development, offering new avenues for addressing reproductive and pregnancy issues