SEMINAR: Glucocorticoids and foetal heart maturation; Implications for prematurity and foetal programming

The Seminar: Glucocorticoid levels rise dramatically in late gestation to mature fetal organs in preparation for life after birth. This is mimicked clinically in the routine administration of synthetic glucocorticoids to pregnant women at risk of preterm birth, to improve neonatal survival. I will speak about the role of glucocorticoids in late gestational heart maturation and discuss how either insufficient or excessive glucocorticoid exposure prior to birth may alter the normal glucocorticoid-regulated trajectory of heart maturation with potential life-long consequences.

The Speaker: Karen Chapman currently holds a personal chair in Molecular Endocrinology at the University of Edinburgh, in the Centre for Cardiovascular Science at the Queen's Medical Research Institute. She joined the University of Edinburgh in 1991 from the MRC Brain Metabolism Unit in Edinburgh and before that, postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard University. She was awarded her PhD from the University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. She has wide-ranging interests in endocrinology, but particularly glucocorticoid action. Her research focuses on (a) the role of glucocorticoid receptor in the cardiovascular system and (b) the role and regulation of the glucocorticoid metabolising 11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase enzymes. She is an active member of the Society for Endocrinology with a keen interest in early career researcher development.