The National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has awarded a new five-year, $2.4 million R01 grant to Jiahui Ding, Ph.D., assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology in the C.S. Mott Center for Human Growth and Development at Wayne State University School of Medicine, to support research aimed at determining how viral infections during pregnancy reprogram the developing fetus’ immune system and influence lifelong susceptibility to infections.
Maternal viral infections during pregnancy are associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes and long-term effects on offspring health. However, scientists do not fully understand how maternal infection alters fetal immune development, especially when the fetus itself is not directly infected. The project, “The placental response to maternal viral infection promotes immune reprogramming in sexually dimorphic offspring,” focuses on the placenta as a key mediator of that communication.
This project addresses one of the most important unanswered questions in developmental immunology: how prenatal experiences influence lifelong immune health. By understanding how maternal viral infections reprogram fetal immune development, we hope to identify new biomarkers and therapeutic strategies that can reduce susceptibility to infections and improve health outcomes for future generations. ”
Dr. Jiahui Ding, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, CS Mott Center for Human Growth and Development, Wayne State University School of Medicine
The findings are expected to provide fundamental insight into why men and women respond differently to infections, vaccines, and inflammatory diseases after prenatal viral exposure. Ultimately, this study could pave the way for precision medicine approaches that consider fetal sex when developing preventive and therapeutic interventions for pregnancy.
During pregnancy, the placenta acts as an important immune organ that helps educate and shape the developing fetus’s immune system. When a pregnant mother gets an infection, the placenta senses the infection and activates an immune response.
“In this project, we will investigate how the placenta responds to maternal viral infections, how those signals influence the development of fetal immune cells, and why that effect differs in men and women. Ultimately, we hope to better understand how infections during pregnancy affect subsequent immune health and identify potential ways to protect fetal development,” Ding said.
Preliminary findings from Dr. Ding’s lab show that maternal viral infection impairs neutrophil function and increases inflammatory susceptibility primarily in male offspring, suggesting that placental inflammatory pathways function in a sex-specific manner during fetal development.
This project will investigate how placental inflammasome activation, specifically IL-1β signaling, reshapes fetal hematopoietic stem cell development and establishes long-lasting immune memory. The research team will use cutting-edge approaches such as single-cell transcriptomics, epigenetic profiling, and an innovative human placenta-fetal interface organ-on-a-chip model to uncover molecular pathways linking maternal infection and lifelong immune function.
“I am extremely grateful and excited to receive this award, especially given the competitive funding environment. This support provides an important opportunity for my laboratory to develop a long-term research program focused on how the pregnant mother’s environment shapes the child’s immune development and health,” said Professor Ding.
This grant is her first R01 as principal investigator.
This award represents another major milestone in the Mott Center’s mission to understand the origins of health and disease development through interdisciplinary collaboration.
“We congratulate Dr. Ding Jiahui on receiving his first NIH R01 award. This is an outstanding milestone for a promising early career researcher,” said Dr. Wael Sakr, Dean of the Department of Medicine. “This remarkable achievement reflects both her outstanding scientific talent and the collaborative research environment at the CS Mott Center. Dr. Ding’s innovative research has the potential to transform our understanding of how maternal health shapes immune function across the lifespan and advance precision medicine for future generations. We are proud of her success and look forward to the important discoveries that will emerge from this outstanding research.”
Ding’s early research, including studies of Zika virus infection during pregnancy, found that placental responses differed depending on fetal sex, and that these placental responses were associated with long-term persistence and sexual dimorphism differences in neutrophil function in the offspring.
“Dr. Ding’s NIH R01 embodies the Mott Center’s scientific vision, where researchers from a variety of specialties collaborate to understand how events during pregnancy influence lifelong health,” said Dr. Gil Moh, John M. Malone, Jr., MD, Women’s Health Endowed Chair, CS Mott Center Scientific Director, and Vice Chair for Obstetrics and Gynecology Research.
“This project complements several ongoing research programs at the Center that investigate how maternal infectious and environmental exposures influence fetal development and disease origins. A critical strength of our research environment is that we integrate expertise in reproductive immunology, developmental biology, stem cell biology, and systems immunology to uncover the biological basis of sexual dimorphism in disease susceptibility,” said Dr. Mol. “Understanding why men and women respond differently to prenatal problems is central to developing the next generation of precision medicine strategies for mothers and children.”
The CS Mott Center for Human Growth and Development at Wayne State University is a nationally recognized interdisciplinary research center dedicated to advancing discoveries about reproductive biology, pregnancy, fetal development, cancer, environmental health, and the developmental origins of disease. Through collaborative basic, translational, and clinical research, the center aims to improve the health of women, children, and families, and to train the next generation of biomedical scientists.
“Dr. Ding’s research has the potential to prevent lifelong health problems in children exposed to infectious diseases before birth,” said Dr. Ezemenali Obasi, vice president for research and innovation at Wayne State University. “We look forward to the impact this research will have in our community and beyond.”
