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Women & Children’s Health Gestational diabetes and endothelial dysfunction seminar, chaired by Professor Paul Taylor, highlights the TransCampus Research Exchange Programme between King’s College London and the Technical University of Dresden (TUD), Germany. The Seminar will explore our current understanding of the vascular consequences of gestational diabetes for mother and baby and address the challenges, mechanisms and potential interventions to improve maternal and fetal outcomes. Professor Henning Morawietz will present data from human vascular biology studies at the fetoplacental interface which have identified endothelial dysfunction and potential mediators of the increased long-term risk for cardiometabolic diseases in patients with GDM. Dr Maria de Leyre Villar Ballesteros was recently awarded a joint PhD from KCL and TUD and will present some of her work, performed partly at King’s, on the role of Fatty Acid Binding Protein 4 (FABP4) in GDM-induced endothelial dysfunction and potential mitigation through maternal lifestyle intervention, as part of the UPBEAT RCT. Our third talk from Dr Sarah Chapple, provides further insight into our mechanistic understanding of endothelial dysfunction in GDM, presenting data from both human and murine GDM pregnancy on the importance of nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) the antioxidant response to GDM, and Nrf2 as a potential therapeutic target for the improvement of life-long health for both mother and baby.
