ICHG2019| Speakers
ICHG 2019 Speakers
Dr Rebecca Painter
Gynaecologist and fellow in fetal maternal medicine
University of Amsterdam
Dr Painter is a gynaecologist and fellow in fetal maternal medicine at the University of Amsterdam, Academic Medical Centre. Her clinical interests focus on nutrition in pregnancy, and include maternal obesity, diabetes in pregnany and hyperemesis gravidarum.
In her PhD, she established that long term effects of maternal undernutrition during the Dutch Famine of 1944-45. Her current research interests include the long term health of children conceived by IVF and of those conceived by obese women. Her group recently conducted the first randomised controlled trial to study the utility of tube feeding in hyperemesis gravidarum.
Patrick MM Bossuyt
Professor of Clinical Epidemiology
Dept. Clinical Epidemiology, Biostatistics & Bioinformatics
Amsterdam University Medical Centers
Patrick M. Bossuyt is the professor of Clinical Epidemiology at the Amsterdam University Medical Centers, where he leads the Biomarker and Test Evaluation Research program. The BiTE Program aims to develop and appraise methods for evaluating medical tests and biomarkers, and to apply these methods in pragmatic clinical studies. In doing so, the program wants to strengthen the evidence-base for rational decision-making about the use of tests and testing strategies in health care. Bossuyt spearheaded the STARD initiative to improve the reporting of diagnostic test accuracy studies.
Dr Bossuyt has authored and co-authored several hundred publications in peer reviewed journals and serves on the editorial board of a number of these, including Radiology and Clinical Chemistry. He acted as chair of his Department for ten years and as chair of the Division of Public Health and Clinical Methods. He currently chairs the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Dutch Health Insurance Board, which oversees the health care benefits covered in the national health insurance program. In 2019, he received the Inspiring Minds award from the American Association of Clinical Chemistry.
Caitlin Dean
Chair of Trustees, Pregnancy Sickness Support
PhD Student, University of Amsterdam
A three time hyperemesis gravidarum survivor, Caitlin Dean dedicates her time and energy in to raising awareness about the condition in the media, providing support to sufferers and writing prolifically on the subject through her Spewing Mummy blog, healthcare journals and magazines. As a Registered General Nurse and Chairperson for UK charity Pregnancy Sickness Support she is involved in research, pioneering services and health care professional education about HG. She has authored two books on the condition: Hyperemesis Gravidarum – The Definitive Guide for women, partners and healthcare professionals; and How to be an HG Hero for the children of women suffering.
Following her MSc in Clinical Research in 2016 in which she surveyed women's experiences of treatment for HG in the UK, Caitlin is currently undertaking a PhD to further the HG research agenda. Her particular interest is in the benefits of pre-pregnancy planning for subsequent HG pregnancies and prophylactic treatment.
Marlena Fejzo
Professor of Research
UCLA, USC and HER Foundation
Marlena Schoenberg Fejzo, Ph.D., is an American medical scientist and professor of research on Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG) and gynecologic cancer. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1995 and currently has joint appointments at the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Southern California. She has published peer-reviewed scientific articles on many diseases of women including ovarian cancer, breast cancer, multiple sclerosis, and discovered the first gene for uterine fibroids. She provided evidence for a genetic component to HG, is an advisor for the Hyperemesis Education and Research Foundation, and runs a study to identify genes and epidemiologic factors linked to HG.
Iris Grooten
Registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology and PhD student
University of Amsterdam
Dr Grooten is a registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Amsterdam, Academic Medical Centre. She is conducting her PhD on hyperemesis gravidarum (HG), covering aetiologic markers, treatment options and offspring cardiometabolic consequences. She has just completed a nationwide randomised controlled trial investigating the effectiveness of early nasogastric tube feeding in HG (MOTHER trial) and is currently developing a large Delphi survey including multiple stakeholders to develop international consensus on HG definition and core outcomes for HG research (DCOHG project).
Larissa Jansen
Junior doctor in obstetrics and gynaecology Franciscus Gasthuis
Researcher on core outcome set and definition of hyperemesis gravidarum at the University of Amsterdam
Larissa Jansen is an MD who is conducting research to standardize future research in the field of treatment and prevention of hyperemesis gravidarum. Studies on hyperemesis gravidarum are often of limited size. Due to inconsistent inclusion and inconsistent outcome reporting meta-analysis is not possible. In order to reduce research waste and improve harmonization of hyperemesis gravidarum research a core outcome set and definition was developed (the DCOHG project). Currently, Larissa Jansen is the coordinating investigator on this project.
Cath Williamson
Professor of Women’s Health and Honorary Consultant in Obstetric Medicine at Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College Hospitals.
She is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and a NIHR Senior Investigator. Her research focus is on the maternal and fetal aetiology and outcomes metabolic disorders of pregnancy, including hyperemesis gravidarum, cholestasis and diabetes.
Stephen O’Rahilly
Professor Sir Stephen O'Rahilly FRS, is Co-Director of the Wellcome Trust-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science (IMS) and Director of the MRC Metabolic Diseases Unit which is part of the broader University of Cambridge Metabolic Research Laboratories which he also directs. On the wider Cambridge Biomedical Campus, he is Scientific Director of the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre and Head of the University Department of Clinical Biochemistry. He was elected FRS in 2003, to the National Academy of Sciences, USA in 2011, has received five honorary doctorates and numerous scientific awards including the 2014 Zülch Prize of the Max Planck Society, the 2014 Baly Medal of the RCP (London), in 2015 was the first recipient of the EASD/Novo Nordisk Foundation Diabetes Prize for Excellence and in 2019 the Banting Medal for Scientific Achievement. In 2013 he was made Knight Bachelor "for services to medical research". His main research area is the aetiology and pathophysiology of human metabolic and endocrine disease and how such information might be used to improve the diagnosis, therapy and prevention of these diseases.
Aldo Maina
Dr. Maina is an internist working at an Italian ob-gyn referral centre one of the largest in Europe, Ospedale Sant'Anna, in Torino. (North-West Italy).
He is interested in obstetric medicine and women’s health issues. His activity is mostly clinical with the aim to improve both mothers-to-be wellbeing and pregnancy outcomes. Starting his assistance from the very beginning of pregnancy, understanding the importance of nutrition and life style (preconception women's health and nutrition) and the issues related to advancing maternal age and IVF. He works at transdermal medication development for treatment of HG and authored CLONEMESI study on the use of transdermal clonidine in severe and persistent cases. Dr Maina collaborates to junior doctors training with post degree rounds in Obstetric Medicine. To improve his clinical practice he likes focusing on neglected and misunderstood areas through close observation, discussion and reporting.
Brian Cleary
Hanan El Marroun
Dr. Hanan El Marroun has a background in epidemiology and neuroscience. Her research focuses on prenatal health and offspring (brain) development in population-based studies.
One of the topics that she has been studying in depth is the influence of (prenatal) substance use exposure and neurodevelopmental outcomes, including behavior, cognition, and brain structure and connectivity. Next to her research, she also teaches bachelor and master students on addiction, neuropsychology, and developmental neuroscience
Laila Tata
Laila is an epidemiologist whose main interests are in pregnancy and the perinatal period, and the relationships between maternal and child health. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham where she conducts large studies on adverse drug effects and consequences of illness mainly using routinely collected health data linked across multiple sources to create large population-based study cohorts.
Her current research in hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) uses information from women’s interactions with their general practitioner and hospital to describe the national burden of HG and severe NVP, what makes some women at greater risk than others, whether early treatment from general practice may result in fewer hospital admissions, and the safety of using antiemetic medications in pregnancy. Laila welcomes further collaborations locally and internationally. More information about Laila’s work and publications can be found at https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/medicine/people/laila.tata
Cath MacParlin
Anne Ostenfeld
MD, PhD student
Dept. of gynaecology and obstetrics North Zealand Hospital, Denmark
Anne Ostenfeld is an MD conducting her PhD on mirtazapine and hyperemesis gravidarum. As a PhD student she focuses on the safety of mirtazapine exposure in pregnancy and on the effect of mirtazapine on hyperemesis gravidarum. She is the coordinating investigator on the VOMIT trial which is a randomised placebo-controlled multicentre trial investigating the effect of mirtazapine and ondansetron on hyperemesis gravidarum. She is also conducting a study on mirtazapine exposure in pregnancy and pregnancy outcome based on Danish registers.
Linda Fiaschi
Senior Research Fellow in eHealth
Dr Fiaschi is a Senior Research Fellow in eHealth at Division of Epidemiology and Public Health, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, UK and her research is focussed on perinatal epidemiology, including pregnancy complications, adverse pregnancy outcomes and drugs safety in pregnancy. She received her B.Sc., M.Sc. in Electronic Engineering with Biomedical Specialization from the University of Pisa, Italy, and her PhD in Computer Science (Bioinformatics) from the University of Nottingham, UK, on the analysis of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms in disease association studies. Her expertise includes large databases management, pregnancy longitudinal data analysis, medical data mining and programming. In the most recent project, she carried out an assessment of risk factors, adverse maternal and birth outcomes and management of nausea and vomiting in pregnancy and hyperemesis gravidarum, making use of some of the largest primary and secondary care electronic datasets in the UK.
Helen Penny
BSC(Hons), PhD, DClinPsy.
Helen is a Clinical Psychologist and Honorary Senior Lecturer at Cardiff University. In her role as Senior Clinical Tutor on the South Wales Doctoral Training Programme in Clinical Psychology, Helen supervises doctoral research on the psychological consequences of HG.
Charlotte Howden
Kimber Wakefield MacGibbon
Director
HER Foundation
Kimber Wakefield MacGibbon, Registered Nurse, is the co-founder and Director of the Hyperemesis Education and Research Foundation. In collaboration with the University of Southern California and the University of California Los Angeles, she has coauthored over two dozen papers on HG that study the short and long-term maternal and fetal impact of HG, as well as explore a genetic causation. She has spoken in Washington, DC at a congressional briefing on HG and authored numerous educational materials. She oversees the daily operations of the foundation and regularly assists clinicians, families and researchers to minimise the suffering and loss associated with HG.
Michelle Nicholson
Counsellor, Hyperemesis Counselling
Michelle Nicholson MSW MBACP (Snr Accred) is a Counsellor with a clinical interest in hyperemesis gravidarum. A registered and senior accredited member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, Michelle founded Hyperemesis Counselling, the UK’s first counselling service for women affected by pregnancy sickness, in 2016. Hyperemesis Counselling operates as a small, private practice, providing psychotherapeutic support to clients, across the UK, by telephone. She is also employed as a Counsellor at the University of Edinburgh. Michelle’s research interests and journal publications focus on the emotional and mental health impacts of HG.
Lucía Colodro Conde
Lucía Colodro-Conde is a postdoctoral researcher at the Psychiatric Genetics laboratory at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Brisbane (Australia), where she moved after completing her Ph.D. in Psychology and M.Sc. in Clinical and Health Psychology at the University of Murcia (Spain).
Her research focuses on individual differences in mental health, personality, and women's health. She is the primary analysis of the 'NVP Genetics Consortium' (NVP standing for nausea and vomiting during pregnancy), an international collaboration to investigate the causes and correlates of NVP. Within this consortium, she has analysed epidemiological and etiological factors influencing the severity of NVP and hyperemesis gravidarum, and its relationship with mental health.
Luke Grzeskowiak
Postdoctoral Research Fellow – Robinson Research Institute, University of Adelaide
Specialist Pharmacist – Women’s and Newborn health at Flinders Medical Centre
Affiliate Senior Research Fellow – South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute
Luke is passionate about improving health outcomes for mothers and babies through the development and promotion of more effective and safer approaches towards medicines use. Luke is actively involved in a number of professional societies and currently chairs the Women’s and Newborn Health Specialty Practice Stream for the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia. Further, since 2017 he has been involved as an expert reviewer on medication use in pregnancy and lactation for the Australian Therapeutic Guidelines. Luke was involved in the development of the 2019 guidelines for the management of nausea and vomiting of pregnancy released by the Society of Obstetric Medicine of Australia and New Zealand (SOMANZ) and is currently involved in evaluating the management of nausea and vomiting in pregnancy using primary care data in Australia.
Krista F. Huybrechts, MS, PhD
Krista F. Huybrechts, M.S., Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an epidemiologist in the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She also holds an appointment as adjunct faculty at Boston University School of Public Health. Dr. Huybrechts teaches Drug Epidemiology (EP748) at Boston University School of Public Health and guest lectures in several courses at Harvard Medical School and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She currently serves on the Board of the International Society of Pharmacoepidemiology and Therapeutic Risk Management.
Her research centers on the utilization, comparative safety and effectiveness of prescription medications in pregnant women and their offspring (www.harvardpreg.org), and on studying the outcomes of medications for mental health disorders in vulnerable populations. She also has a special interest in research methodology and innovative research applications in relation to both these fields of study.
Margaret O’Hara
Lone Holst
