MODCAST
MODCAST is a podcast on the most impactful maternal and infant health research conducted today.
MODCAST aims to bring scientists, doctors, donors, and families behind the laboratory doors for a fascinating look into the science that is changing, study by study, the story of moms and babies in the U.S.
From interviews and news analysis to study discussions and more, MODCAST is the science community’s source for today’s preeminent research on moms and babies. Listen today.
Episode 15
Dr. Nima Aghaeepour, an investigator at the March of Dimes Prematurity Research Center at Stanford, and Dr. Sarah England, the director of the Center for Reproductive Health Sciences at Washington University School of Medicine, discuss a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) model that found that sleepers and movers have a 52% reduced risk of delivering early while those sleeping and moving less have a 44% increased risk of delivering early.
Episode 14
The 2024 winners of the March of Dimes Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Research Awards, Dr. Elizabeth Enninga and Dr. Mara Murray Horwitz, discuss their areas of study. Dr. Enninga, an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology, and Immunology, at Minnesota’s Mayo Clinic, explains how cell free (cf) fetal DNA triggers labor and preterm birth, and how understanding more about this process can help prevent early labor and more effectively induce labor. Dr. Murray Horwitz, a primary care doctor at Boston Medical Center and an assistant professor of medicine at Boston University, discusses barriers women with a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy (HDP), like preeclampsia, face in achieving cardiac and overall health after childbirth, and delves into an intervention called patient navigation that can lessen those barriers.
Episode 13
Dr. Alan Flake, the Director of the Center for Fetal Research at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and 2021 March of Dimes Prize recipient, discusses the most impactful pursuits of his career: fetal surgery, the artificial womb, and in utero stem cell therapy.
Episode 12
Dr. Brice Gaudillière, an investigator at the March of Dimes Prematurity Center at Stanford University, discusses a breakthrough Machine Learning (ML) algorithm that makes reliable predictions about labor onset, preterm birth, and preeclampsia and also identifies the biological markers supporting those predictions.
Episode 11
Dr. Marisa Bartolomei, a University of Pennsylvania professor of cell and developmental biology, co-director of the university's Epigenetics Institute, and winner of the 2024 March of Dimes Richard B. Johnston, Jr., MD Prize, on discovering one of the first imprinted genes, making connections between imprinted gene mutations and developmental disorders, and uncovering the exact pathways of gene imprinting defects: namely, abnormalities in DNA methylation.
Episode 10
Former Stanford PRC collaborator Dr. Jonas Miller, now a Psychological Sciences Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut, discusses how the stress a woman experiences before pregnancy is associated with the way her child's brain functions around three to five years old. Those children, Dr. Miller found, have a harder time with impulse control.
Episode 9
Dr. Tim Hand, a March of Dimes researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, discusses the link between breast milk and a life-threatening preterm birth-related condition called necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). As it turns out, not all breastmilk is protective against NEC.
Episode 8
Dr. Elizabeth Cherot, the 6th and current President and CEO of March of Dimes, and first medical doctor to lead the organization since its founding in 1938, discusses the March of Dimes Innovation Fund.
Episode 7
Dr. Lynne Sykes, a co-director of the March of Dimes Prematurity Research Center at Imperial College London, discusses the immune cascade that triggers vaginal microbiome-driven preterm birth and a new vaginal supplement that could change the makeup of the vaginal microbiome to prevent this type of immune response.
Episode 6
Philadelphia neonatologists Dr. Jay Greenspan and Dr. Liz Foglia discuss three talks at the upcoming Hot Topics in Neonatology conference in Maryland: one on the lower limits of viability and the other two on racism in the NICU.
Episode 5
Dr. Nima Aghaeepour, a researcher at March of Dimes' Prematurity Research Center at Stanford, discusses a Machine Learning (ML) model that predicts prematurity-related newborn diseases weeks before they occur, including before a baby is even born.
Episode 4
A new test has been developed by Professor MacIntyre and his team at the March of Dimes Prematurity Research Center at Imperial College London that could provide nearly instantaneous identification of certain types of bacteria, indicating whether or not a woman may be at high risk for preterm birth.
Episode 3
We talk with Stanford University Science Fellow Dr. Mira Moufarrej on what we know about preeclampsia, why African American women are disproportionately impacted and a new blood test that could identify at-risk women in the first trimester.
Episode 2
Dr. Marina Sirota is an associate professor in the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute and the department of Pediatrics at University of California San Francisco and the principal investigator at the March of Dimes Prematurity Research Center at University of California San Francisco. Her team is using Big Data to help predict when a woman may be at risk for preterm birth.
Episode 1
March of Dimes Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Emre Seli discusses the motivations behind the podcast, the research vision at March of Dimes, our belief in open, collaborative science, and our focus on translational research that makes a difference for moms.
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