Webinar Summary
- Discuss the maternal mortality crisis in the United States
- Describe cardiovascular changes and adaptations that occur during normal pregnancy
- Highlight adverse cardiovascular changes that can occur during pregnancy
- Discuss potential metabolic mechanisms contributing to pregnancy-induced cardiac growth and its reversal
Maternal mortality rates are at an all-time high in the United States and continue to increase, with the leading cause of death being cardiovascular diseases. The development of cardiovascular complications during pregnancy is important because it has been shown to increase both all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in women later in life. Therefore, this highlights the importance of understanding the long-term molecular benefits of a healthy pregnancy.
Dr. Helen E. Collins' laboratory focuses on understanding the mechanisms contributing to female cardiovascular health and resilience in the setting of physiological and pathological stressors, such as during pregnancy and in the setting of myocardial infarction. Currently, NIH-funded studies in the Collins lab focus on understanding the metabolic mechanisms contributing to pregnancy-induced cardiac growth and its reversal.
In this webinar, Dr. Collins describes the current state of knowledge regarding the cardiovascular adaptations during a healthy pregnancy and the potential risk factors for developing pregnancy-associated cardiovascular diseases. She also describes work from her laboratory focused on understanding the underlying metabolic mechanisms contributing to pregnancy-induced cardiac growth, utilizing multi-omics approaches. Specifically, she describes the contributions of the ancillary biosynthetic pathways of glucose metabolism, which provide the building blocks to facilitate cardiac growth, and the contributions of myocardial ketone body metabolism in maintaining mitochondrial energetics in the maternal heart.
Presenters
Helen E. Collins
Dr. Helen E. Collins received both her BSc (Hons) degree in Biological Sciences in 2006 and her PhD focused on diurnal variation in cardiac excitation-contraction coupling in 2011 from the University of Leicester in England. In 2012, she joined the laboratory of Dr. John Chatham at the University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB) as a postdoctoral fellow to elucidate the role of STIM1 in the adult heart. In 2019, Dr. Collins joined the University of Louisville as an Assistant Professor in the Division of Environmental Medicine in the Center for Cardiometabolic Science. Dr. Collins' laboratory focuses on understanding the mechanisms contributing to female cardiovascular health and resilience in the setting of physiological and pathological stressors, such as during pregnancy, exercise, and in the setting of myocardial infarction.
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