MODCAST

Dr. Catherine Spong, professor and chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and one of two principal investigators at the new March of Dimes Texas Collaborative Prematurity Research Center, discusses her career, research, and focus at the PRC: examining how nutrition, socioeconomic factors, the placenta, and bacterial vaginosis affect pregnancy outcomes.

Dr. Lynne Sykes, co-director of the March of Dimes Prematurity Research Center at Imperial College London, discusses her new paper detailing links between a woman’s blood type and her risk of spontaneous preterm birth depending on her gynecological and obstetrical history.

Dr. Wendy Kuohung, a 2025 March of Dimes Discovery Research Grant winner, discusses her original research to find novel therapeutics to treat preeclampsia associated with APOL1 gene variants.

March of Dimes Research Center for Advancing Maternal Health Equity investigator Dr. Sindhu Srinivas and doula Alexia Doumbouya discuss leading a randomized controlled trial (RCT) on whether doula integration throughout pregnancy, birth, and postpartum can decrease maternal depression and anxiety.

Dr. Lars Bode, the founding director of the Human Milk Institute at UC San Diego, the university’s Larsson-Rosenquist Foundation Chair of Collaborative Human Milk Research, and a professor of pediatrics at the university, discusses human milk, informally known as breast milk, and all its healing properties—that are not only crucial for mothers and babies, but may benefit people of all ages.

Prof. Dennis Lo, the winner of the 2025 March of Dimes Richard B. Johnston, Jr., MD Prize and the inventor of non-invasive prenatal testing, or NIPT, discusses the road to the discovery, the power of cell free DNA to detect cancer, and one of the places in the world he still hasn't been.

Dr. Tony Capra and Dr. Marina Sirota, scientists from the March of Dimes Prematurity Research Center (PRC) at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), discuss their foundational finding that spontaneous, or unplanned, preterm birth is fundamentally different from indicated preterm birth.

Dr. Diana Bianchi, a former March of Dimes Basil O’Connor Starter Scholar Research Award winner, discusses the ability of prenatal testing to detect maternal cancer, her discovery of microchimerism, a potential prenatal therapeutic for Down syndrome, and whether the subjects in Vermeer's paintings were pregnant. This episode was recorded March 4, 2025. As of the episode air date in May 2025, Dr. Bianchi no longer held the position of director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

Leading micronutrient expert Dr. Kimberly O’Brien, a Professor of Human Nutrition at Cornell University and the 2025 recipient of the March of Dimes Agnes Higgins Award in Maternal-Fetal Nutrition, discusses what we know—and don't know—about iron requirements, metabolism, and use in pregnancy.

Dr. Phillip Bennett, a co-director of the March of Dimes Prematurity Research Center at Imperial College London, discusses a historic randomized controlled trial (RCT) that will test a vaginal probiotic's ability to reduce preterm birth risk.