Abdullah Baqui Receives Funds from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to Identify Biological Markers that Predict the Risk of Preterm Birth

Abdullah Baqui, DrPH '90, MPH '85, MBBS, a professor in the Department of International Health and director of the International Center for Maternal and Newborn Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, received a new grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to conduct analyses on and share data from the AMANHI-Bangladesh Biorepository, a repository of biological samples from mothers and infants in Bangladesh. The grant aims to improve maternal, fetal, newborn health and child health outcomes in low-resource settings by identifying biological and genetic markers that may predict a mother’s increased risk of adverse outcomes including preeclampsia, preterm birth, small for gestational age, and deficits in physical, mental and motor development. The two-year award is for $650,000.

The grant supports the creation of a collaborative consortium consisting of local partners in Bangladesh and other laboratory and technical partners based in the United States to pursue multi-omics research inquiries. Local partners in Bangladesh include icddr,b and the Projahnmo Research Foundation. The US-based partners are Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Stanford University and University of California at San Francisco. The consortium will jointly conduct analyses of the samples and share data on an open platform with the goal of identifying new markers of major maternal and fetal adverse pregnancy outcomes.