4:00 pm – 5:30 pm  

Council Meeting

4:00 pm – 6:00 pm  

Check-in and Registration             

6:00 pm

Welcome by PRS President
Marilyn J. Cipolla, PhD

6:15 pm 

MEAD JOHNSON LECTURER
Richard Traystman, PhD
Professor of Pharmacology
Vice-Chancellor for Research
University of Colorado, Denver
"Animal Research Models in Translational Research – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly"

Moderator: Marilyn J. Cipolla, PhD

7:15 pm - 8:15 pm 

Welcome Reception

8:15 pm

Dinner 

NICHD/ Young Investigator Breakfast
Uma Reddy, MD
NICHD (Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development)
Pregnancy & Perinatology Branch

7:00 am - 8:00 am 

BREAKFAST

8:00 am 

MARCH OF DIMES LECTURER
Olaf Dammann, D Med, MPH
Director of Clinical Research, Newborn Medicine
Tufts Medical Center
Floating Hospital for Children, Boston, MA
"Perinatal Infection, Inflamation, and the Pre-term Brain"

Moderator: Joyce Koenig, MD

9:00 am

NICHD LECTURER
David Bucci, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences
Dartmouth University
"Rodent Models of Developmental Psychopathology: Benefits,
Limitations, and New Directions"

Moderator: Pam Kling, MD

10:00 am

EARLY CAREER INVESTIGATOR SPEAKER PRESENTATIONS

Antonette Dulay, MD
Yale University School of Medicine

Michael Golding, PhD
Texas A & M University

Angel Luciano, MD
University of South Florida

Moderator: Marilyn Cipolla, PhD

11:30 am 

ABBOTT NUTRITION LECTURER
Susan Vannucci, PhD
Research Professor of Neuroscience in Pediatrics/Newborn Medicine
Research Director, Division of Newborn Medicine
Department of Pediatrics
Weill Cornell Medical College
"Hypoxia-Ischemia in the Immature Brain - So different from the adult!”

Moderator: John Kingdom, MD

12:30 pm

2:30 pm

BUSINESS MEETING

LILEY LECTURER
Kirk Conrad, MD
Professor of Physiology and OB/GYN
Co-Director of the Reproductive and Perinatal Biology Research Program
Department of Physiology and Functional Genomics
University of Florida - Gainesville
"Unveling the Vasodlatory Actions and Mechanisms of Relaxin"

Moderator: Russ Anthony, PhD

Sunday, Sept. 26

7:00 am - 8:00 am 

YOUNG INVESTIGATOR Q & A BREAKFAST

7:00 am - 8:00 am 

BREAKFAST

8:00 am

Lisa Hornberger, MD
Professor of Pediatrics and OB/GYN
Director, Fetal and Neonatal Cardiology
WCMC Stollery Children's Hospital
Edmonton, Alberta
"Fetal Echocardiography: Insights in the Fetal Circulation and Evolution
of Congenital Heart Disease"

Moderator: Denise Hemmings, PhD

9:00 am

Irina Buhimnschi, MD
Associate Professor
Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences
Yale University
"Proteomics Approach to Predicting Pre-term Birth"

Moderator: Marjorie Meyer

10:00 am

BREAK

10:15 am

Elizabeth Bonney, MD
Professor and Director, Divison of Research
Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences
University of Vermont
"T Cell Homeostasis: A View of the Immune System During Pregnancy"

Moderator: Jeff Segar, MD

 11:30 am

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Richard J. Traystman, PhD

Dr. Traystman is Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Colorado Denver . He is also a Professor of Pharmacology at the School of Medicine . He received his BS and MS degrees from Long Island University and his PhD from Johns Hopkins University Medical Center . Following his postdoctoral fellowship at Bowman Gray School of Medicine, Traystman returned to Johns Hopkins Medical Center in 1972 and remained there until 2003 as a Distinguished University Professor. In 2003, he was appointed Associate Vice President for Research, Planning and Development and Associate Dean for Research at Oregon Health & Sciences University where he was also a Professor of Anesthesiology and Peri-operative Medicine. Traystman was the sole editor-in-chief of the Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism from 2005-2009 and also serves on the editorial boards of several other prestigious journals and reviews manuscripts for a multitude of journals. He has been Associate Editor for the Heart and Circulatory section of the American Journal of Physiology and was deputy editor for Critical Care Medicine. Traystman has received numerous distinguished awards from both clinical and basic science organizations for his work. He has spent more than 35 years working on the regulation of brain blood vessels, cardiac arrest/cardiopulmonary resuscitation and stroke. He has written numerous articles on the appropriateness of animal models of disease for translation of basic findings to clinical studies. Traystman has published more than 450 articles in peer-reviewed journals, has trained more than 100 fellows and students and has been funded by NIH throughout his career. Currently, he is the President-elect for the International Society for Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism.

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Lisa Hornberger, MD

Dr. Hornberger is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Director of Alberta Health Services' Fetal & Neonatology Cardiology Program at the WCMC Stollery Children's Hospital in Edmonton , Alberta . She has authored more than 100 articles and textbooks focused on the early diagnosis, evolution, management and outcomes of fetal heart disease.  Dr. Hornberger's research interests are on the detection and correction of fetal heart complications. Her work has focused on the prenatal diagnosis, natural evolution, management and outcome of structural, functional and rhythm related cardiovascular disorders detected in utero. Dr. Hornberger collaborates extensively with clinical and basic scientists in the areas of perinatology, neonatology, radiology, pathology and physiology. The novel directions of her research may lead to improvements in diagnosis, but more importantly could pave the way to develop therapies that will ultimately improve outcomes for affected patients.

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Kirk P. Conrad, MD   

 Dr. Conrad is Professor of Physiology and Functional Genomics and of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Florida College of Medicine where he also serves as Co-Director of the Reproductive and Perinatal Biology Research Program. Dr. Conrad received his undergraduate degree from Bowdoin College in Biochemistry, graduating magna cum laude. He received his MD from Dartmouth College . After completing a Medicine Internship at the University of Colorado Health Sciences, he completed 2 postdoctoral fellowships first at Dartmouth Medical School in Renal Physiology, Dept. of Physiology and then at Case Western Reserve in Cell Physiology in the Department of Nephrology. Dr. Conrad has been a faculty member of the Dept. of Physiology, Dartmouth Medical School (1984-1990); Depts. of Physiology and of Ob/Gyn, University of New Mexico School of Medicine (1990-94); and the Depts. of Ob/Gyn and Reproductive Sciences, Cell Biology and Physiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Magee Womens Research Institute (1994-2006). He has 63 original publications and 30 invited reviews and chapters, and holds several patents as primary inventor. Dr. Conrad is recipient of the 2010 Ernest H. Starling Distinguished Lectureship of the American Physiological Society Water and Electrolyte Homeostasis Section. He receives support from the NIH, March of Dimes, American Heart Association and the 8^th Mallinckrodt Scholar Award.  Dr. Conrad’s research is focused on the elucidation of the mechanisms underlying vasodilation and increased arterial compliance during normal pregnancy with emphasis on the hormone relaxin, vascular endothelial and placental growth factors, vascular MMP-2 and -9, endothelin_1-32, the endothelial ET_B receptor subtype, and nitric oxide. Dr. Conrad’s work also deals with the potential therapeutic benefit of relaxin in preeclampsia involving preclinical studies using two animal models of the disease. Other areas of investigation include the study of maternal cardiovascular adaptations to pregnancy in women who conceive by assisted reproductive technologies (ART), local relaxin ligand-receptor expression and function in arteries, the need cardiovascular homeostasis in vivo, and the role of the placenta and trophoblast cells in the pathogenesis of preeclampsia.

 
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Olaf Dammann, DrMed, MPH

Dr. Dammann is a pediatrician and epidemiologist with a doctorate from Hamburg University (Germany, ’91) and a Master’s degree from Harvard School of Public Health (’97). Since 2006, he is Director of Clinical Research in Newborn Medicine at the Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center . Since 2008, he also serves as Director of the Pediatric Clinical Research Center at the Floating Hospital . Dr Dammann’s academic appointments are as Research Professor of Pediatrics (since 9/06) and Public Health (pending) at Tufts School of Medicine in Boston . He also serves as Professor and Director of the Perinatal Neuropidemiology Unit at Hannover Medical School in Germany . His research is concerned with the etiology of brain damage and retinopathy of prematurity in preterm infants. He is co-investigator and member of the steering committee of the ELGAN study, funded by NIH with 21 million dollars to study molecular antecedents of white matter damage in preterm newborns. He is currently funded by NIH (National Eye Institute) to perform ancillary analyses in the ELGAN database to identify placenta characteristics that might help predict the risk for retinopathy of prematurity. In Europe , Dr Dammann is the principal investigator of NEOBRAIN, a multinational consortium funded by the European Union with 3.5 million Euros to study neuroprotective strategies in preterm newborns. Most recently, another consortium in the EU directed by Dr. Dammann received 2.99 million Euros in funding from the EU to study the developing blood-brain barriers (NEUROBID). Dr. Dammann currently serves on the editorial boards of the journals ”Early Human Development”, “Neonatology”, and “Acta Paediatrica”. His bibliography lists more than 100 published papers.

Uma Reddy, MD

Uma M. Reddy, M.D., M.P.H., joined the Branch in September 2003. Board certified in obstetrics and gynecology and maternal-fetal medicine, she was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar and received her master’s in public health from Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Reddy completed her obstetrics and gynecology residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and her maternal-fetal medicine fellowship at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. Dr. Reddy manages translational and clinical research grants in obstetrics and maternal-fetal medicine and serves as a program scientist for the Stillbirth Collaborative Research Network (SCRN) and the GPN/PBR. Dr. Reddy is a fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), a member of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, and a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at National Naval Medical Center.

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Susan J. Vannucci, Ph.D.

Dr. Vannucci received her BS from the University of Michigan and her MS and PhD from Pennsylvania State University . Currently, she is a Professor of Neuroscience in Pediatrics/ Newborn Medince at Weill Cornell Medical College. Her research focuses on cerebral metabolism, brain nutrient transport and stroke in a variety of experimental animal models in neonates and adults. Each of the models has direct clinical relevance to conditions including perinatal asphyxial brain damage and diabetic stroke. Cerebral hypoxia-ischemia, or stroke, causes cell death and brain damage due to cellular energy failure and the initiation of a cascade of events including excitotoxicity, apoptosis, and inflammation. Providing appropriate and useable fuel to the brain can help alleviate the energy failure and this process is dependent on the nutrient transporter proteins, primarily the glucose transporter proteins (GLUTs) and monocarboxylate transporter proteins (MCTs). The expression of these proteins in the brain changes with normal cerebral development and with pathologic conditions, including hypoglycemia, diabetes, and stroke. Many of Dr. Vannucci’s research projects focus on the development of therapeutic interventions based on energy substrate supplementation to achieve neuroprotection following stroke.