Investigators

Key Clinician-Scientists at the Mother Infant Research Institute
at Tufts Medical Center

Jill Maron, MD, MPH; Sarbattama Sen, MD; Diana Bianchi, MD - back row

Michael House, MD; Errol Norwitz, MD, PhD; Adam Wolfberg, MD MPH (former MIRI Investigator) - front row

Diana W. Bianchi, MD, is the founding Executive Director of MIRI. She is Vice Chair for Research at Floating Hospital for Children and the Natalie V. Zucker Professor of Pediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynecology at Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Bianchi is a medical geneticist and neonatologist. Her research focuses on reproductive genomic medicine, prenatal diagnosis, fetal treatment, fetal cell microchimerism and regenerative medicine. Dr. Bianchi is Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Prenatal Diagnosis, Past-President of the International Society for Prenatal Diagnosis, and a member of the American Association of Physicians, a national honorary society for clinician-scientists. Her research is funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. She is a former Basil O’Connor Scholar of the March of Dimes Foundation. Dr. Bianchi’s collaborations

Errol Norwitz, MD, PhD, is the Louis Phaneuf Professor and Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Tufts University School of Medicine and Tufts Medical Center. Dr. Norwitz is a specialist in maternal-fetal medicine. His research interests include the genetics of adverse pregnancy outcome and the molecular regulation of labor and delivery, both term and preterm. Dr. Norwitz is a former Rhodes Scholar. His research has been funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the March of Dimes. Dr. Norwitz’s collaborations

Michael House, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Tufts University School of Medicine and a specialist in maternal-fetal medicine at Tufts Medical Center. Dr. House uses a bioengineering strategy to investigate cervical biomechanics, specifically cervical function, as it relates to the cause of spontaneous premature birth. Dr. House is a March of Dimes-NICHD Scholar of the Reproductive Scientist Development Program, which is supported by NIH and the March of Dimes. He is one of only five individuals nationwide to receive this highly competitive support. His research is also supported by the Burroughs-Wellcome Foundation. Dr. House’s collaborations

Jill L. Maron, MD, MPH, is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine and a neonatologist at Floating Hospital for Children. Dr. Maron has discovered that the saliva from premature newborns contains a wealth of information about many of their developing systems, such as the gastrointestinal tract and the brain. She is studying the genetic information within newborn saliva as a way of determining when a premature infant becomes ready to feed orally. Dr. Maron’s research is funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Charles Hood Foundation. Dr. Maron’s collaborations

Sarbattama Sen, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine and a neonatologist at Floating Hospital for Children. Dr. Sen is studying the impact of maternal obesity on infant and child health, specifically with regard to the increased risk of developing inflammatory diseases such as asthma. Dr. Sen will be submitting her first NIH grant application in early 2011. Dr. Sen’s collaborations