We’re thrilled to congratulate Dr Jacinta Kalisch-Smith on receiving a prestigious 5-year Intermediate Fellowship from the British Heart Foundation (BHF). Her research will shine a light on a part of pregnancy health that often goes overlooked: the blood vessels in the placenta, and how they may contribute to congenital heart defects and miscarriage.
Placental blood vessels play a vital role in supporting fetal growth and development, yet remarkably little is known about how they form, or how their dysfunction might affect outcomes during pregnancy. Dr Kalisch-Smith’s fellowship aims to change that by uncovering the early origins of placental vasculature and how disruptions in this network could impact heart development in the fetus.
'My fellowship will understand the molecular mechanisms of placental blood vessel formation from their earliest progenitor cell populations in mice and humans,' says Dr Kalisch-Smith, 'and how they affect or respond to pathologies of pregnancy including miscarriage and congenital heart defects.'
The specific vascular network Jacinta is investigating, which connects the placenta to the fetus via the umbilical cord, has received very little attention in past research. Yet, we already know this system is sensitive to both maternal environmental changes and fetal genetic factors. And evidence from mouse models suggests a strong two-way relationship: placental defects can lead to heart defects, and vice versa. However, this has never been confirmed in humans before birth, a key gap Dr Kalisch-Smith hopes to address.
Dr Kalisch-Smith 's research will combine mouse genetic models and human tissue from early pregnancy to understand how these blood vessels form in normal and pathological pregnancies, with a focus on miscarriage and congenital heart disease. Understanding how placental blood vessels develop, and identifying when they show signs of dysfunction, could pave the way for new biomarkers, molecules that could be detected in a mother’s blood to monitor placental health.