Microbes and Social Equity speaker series 2023
This series explores the way that microbes connect public policy, social disparities, and human health, as well as the ongoing research, education, policy, and innovation in this field.
I would like to thank the UMaine Institute of Medicine for their support for this series, and acknowledge the work of our MSE members helping to organize this: Emily Wissel, Katherine Daiy, Kieran O’Doherty, Hannah Holland-Moritz, Mallory Choudoir, and Mustafa Saifuddin. I would also like to recognize that the University of Maine is located on Marsh Island in the homeland of the Penobscot Nation.
Our presentation today is “The maternal microbiota and offspring development: Towards a translational systems approach in maternal-child health.”, Dr. Eldin Jašarević.
Dr. Jašarević (pronouns he/him) is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and Computational and Systems Biology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He is also Primary Investigator at Magee-Womens Research Institute. Eldin received a PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Missouri and the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders studying the combined effects of maternal stress and diet on sex-specific brain development in mice. Eldin completed his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Tracy Bale at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Maryland School of Medicine. His postdoc work showed that lifetime experiences influence the composition and function of maternal microbiome, and vertical transmission of these communities is causally linked to poor health outcomes in offspring. Current research interests include mining the human maternal microbiota for novel functions that contribute to offspring development, and ultimately gaining a better understanding of the ways in which the prenatal environment shapes the postnatal response to the external microbial world. For this work, Eldin has been selected as a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and is the recipient of a National Research Service Award from NIMH, and a Research Scientist Development Award from NIDDK.
