W&I Hospital receives $2.1M grant to continue work on perinatal biology

PROVIDENCE – The Women & Infants Hospital’s Center of Biomedical Research Excellence for Perinatal Biology has been given a $2.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, the organization said on Monday.

Researchers at the hospital study embryo, placenta and heart development, as well as the susceptibility of newborns to infection and the effects of intrauterine development on later outcomes. The Women & Infants facility, located in Providence’s “Knowledge District,” is one of 108 similar research centers nationally, but is the only one focused on developmental research, the organization said.

“Our projects are focused on critical windows of development. Environmental disturbance or other influences during these critical windows can have lasting effects,” said James Padbury, pediatrician-in-chief. “Our overarching hypothesis is that understanding these effects during critical developmental periods informs the mechanisms of health and disease throughout life.”

Researchers at the center include Carmen Marsit, Jared Robins, Yi-Tang Tseng, Sunil Shaw, Zhongbin Lai and Joseph Bliss, a neonatologist who is studying infection in extremely low-weight newborns with the hopes that his discoveries will improve care not only for these infants, but also for immune-compromised children and adults whose lives may be threatened by these infections.