“Birth at the right time, at the right weight, with the right responses to environmental cues, free of damaging mutations is central to the long term health of the individual.”

Program Leader, Professor Roger Smith

Health in a developing baby is absolutely critical to living a healthy adult life. HMRI’s Pregnancy and Reproduction Program is a multidisciplinary program focussed on understanding the mechanisms and processes which control reproduction, human birth and prematurity to ensure the long term health of the individual.

The Pregnancy and Reproduction Program incorporates around 90 members from the University of Newcastle and Hunter New England Health and is affiliated with the University of Newcastle’s Priority Research Centre for Reproductive Science. Researchers working within the program are focussed on understanding mechanisms that lead to premature birth, and the environmental and biological processes which control reproduction and birth.

Important research is being conducted in these areas with the potential to improve the health of the community, now and in the future, addressing one of the Australian Government’s most important national research priorities, ‘A Healthy Start to Life’.

The research activities of HMRI’s Pregnancy and Reproduction Program are coordinated through two centres:

• The Mothers and Babies Research Centre focuses its research on pregnancy and premature birth. In particular on the timing and mechanism of human labour and the effects of maternal asthma on the health of the developing fetus.
• The ARC Centre of Excellence in Biotechnology and Development focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms of reproduction to address issues such as male infertility, contraception, testicular cancer and menopause.