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The Mother Infant Research Institute (MIRI) at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, MA focuses on the lifelong consequences of the intimate and unique biological relationship between mother and baby during pregnancy. Medical research has already established that events that occur at critical stages of human development in the womb influence the later occurrence of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis and inflammatory disorders, such as asthma, in both childhood and adulthood. MIRI’s guiding principle is that clinical and translational multi-disciplinary research directed towards ensuring healthy pregnancies, full-term deliveries, and normal birth weights will positively affect both health and health care costs for millions of people over multiple generations.
MIRI is the only research institute in the United States that combines pediatrics and obstetrics to investigate the impact of events that occur during pregnancy on trans-generational health. While other research programs investigate specific developmental disorders and injuries related to birth, MIRI investigators study the impact of the biological bonds formed during pregnancy on long-term health and at different stages of the life cycle – fetal, newborn, child, adolescent and adult. MIRI’s current research studies center on preterm birth and its complications, maternal obesity, and fetal and neonatal genomic medicine-- three topics of current clinical, public health and economic significance.
The mission of MIRI is to improve the health of pregnant women, children, and their families through innovative basic, clinical, and translational research.
The goals of MIRI are to:
• Address problems in pregnancy and early infancy from a holistic perspective: prevention, diagnosis, and treatment
• Consider how conditions that occur during pregnancy affect individuals at different stages in their lives —as fetuses, newborns, children, adolescents, and adults
• Create and recruit multi-disciplinary research teams that address topics of clinical significance in the 21st century
• Leverage existing expertise at Tufts by partnering with other scientists, institutes, and departmental programs
• Train future generations of researchers dedicated to improving the health of pregnant women and their children
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