Dr Deborah Money’s most recent CIHR Project Grant, “Defining the maternal legacy: Does mode of delivery impact the role of the maternal vaginal microbiome in predicting the infant gut microbiome?”, will bring together senior, mid-level and junior investigators from across the department and across the province to develop a deeper understanding of the potential role of the maternal bacterial community on the infant gut bacterial community.
Three hospital sites in BC – BC Women’s Hospital and Health Centre, Surrey Memorial Hospital, and University Hospital of Northern BC – will be engaged in this 5 year project to determine if the maternal bacterial community is transferred to the infant during delivery and if the different types of deliveries (vaginal, elective caesarean, emergency caesarean) alter this transfer. Dr Julie van Schalkwyk and Dr KS Joseph are Co-Principal Investigators, with Drs Chelsea Elwood, Jennifer Hutcheon and Janet Lyons at the BCW site, Sheona Mitchell at UHNBC, and Kirsten Grabowska at SMH as co-investigators.
The research will build on existing collaborations with Co-Principal Investigator, Janet Hill from the Department of Veterinary Microbiology, and Co-Investigator, Matthew Links from the Department of Animal and Poultry Science at the University of Saskatchewan who will utilize genomic technology to profile the microbiome communities. The project is also building collaborations with the Women’s Health Research Institute (Arianne Albert, Co-I), the UBC Department of Pediatrics (Soren Gantt, Co-I), the UBC School of Population and Public Health (Amee Manges, Co-I), the UBC Department of Family Practice, Midwifery (Zoe Hodgson, Co-I) and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Saskatoon (Tim Dumonceaux, Collaborator)
More information about this project is available on the CIHR website.
We look forward to hearing more about this exciting and important work in the future.
Defining the maternal legacy: the UBC Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology team