The U.S. maternal mortality rate continues to climb to unprecedented numbers, highlighting a critical gap in the global understanding of maternal health and the pressing need for new, early interventions. With prevention as a top priority, University of Iowa Health Care researchers have gained momentum on identifying early markers and risk factors that can help identify high-risk pregnancies and guide timely interventions. Donna Santillan, PhD, and Mark Santillan, MD (09F,16PhD), are leading this effort through the UI Women’s Health Tissue Repository.

Beth Newell, assistant professor of pediatrics–critical care in the UI Stead Family Department of Pediatrics, is working to improve outcomes following traumatic brain injury (TBI) in her clinical care practice, which she couples with research on how immune cells in the brain respond to a TBI and impact long-term recovery.

Now in its 15th year, the FUTURE in Biomedicine program fosters research and learning partnerships with professors from Iowa colleges that do not offer doctoral programs. Two of this summer’s researchers—Nandakumar Narayanan, MD, PhD, from the University of Iowa, and Terence Moriarty, PhD, of the University of Northern Iowa—discuss their experience collaborating through the program.

University of Iowa graduate student Brooke Yeager has won the 2023 Kwak-Ferguson Fellowship, a $10,000 award from the Iowa Neuroscience Institute for an upper level graduate student working in the area of neurodegenerative diseases.

A few minutes of data recorded from a single electrode placed on top of the head may be sufficient to predict thinking problems, including dementia, in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). The finding from a new University of Iowa study might help improve diagnosis of cognitive disability in PD and develop new biomarkers and targeted therapies for cognitive symptoms of the disease.

The Iowa Neuroscience Institute has awarded two grants to support early-career faculty members pursuing research in fundamental brain mechanisms. Stephanie Gantz, PhD, assistant professor of molecular physiology and biophysics, and Joel Geerling, MD, PhD, assistant professor of neurology, will each receive $300,000 over two years to support their research.