Mary Norton, MD
Center Co-Director Mary Norton and team will join the Maternal-Fetal Medicine Units Network (MFMU) with funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to begin on April 1. MFMU is the premier obstetrical clinical trials network in the world.
Dr. Mary Norton will be the Principal Investigator on the grant with Dr. Teresa Sparks participating as the alternate PI.
MFMU Network
The MFMU Network provides an infrastructure to conduct multiple large studies simultaneously with a focus on finding treatments that prevent poor pregnancy outcomes and ending the use of ineffective, costly, and potentially harmful therapies. The participating clinical centers include over 160,000 deliveries annually and are racially, ethnically, and geographically diverse. Results from MFMU Network studies have had tremendous impact on clinical obstetric practice, and participation in these studies will allow UCSF to contribute to this important work.
The MFMU Network aims to improve obstetric care, pregnancy health, and outcomes for pregnant and lactating people and their babies. This includes finding ways to: reduce maternal mortality, complications, and morbidities related to pregnancy, labor, and post-partum recovery; reduce prematurity, low-birth weight, infant mortality, and morbidities; and expand the evidence base on the safety and efficacy of therapeutic products used during pregnancy and lactation.
Partnership Aims
The MFMU Network is the primary and first-line infrastructure for implementing multisite obstetric clinical trials by the NICHD. As contributing member, UCSF will:
- Enroll a large and uniquely diverse west coast participant population in MFMU studies.
- Contribute multidisciplinary expertise of UCSF investigators to:
- High-priority areas of public health that impact pregnant people and/or their infants, such as the COVID pandemic, the opioid crisis, impacts of climate change, and lactation safety;
- Novel and emerging areas such as perinatal genetics and genomics, pharmacogenomics and metagenomics, in utero molecular therapies, and many others; and
- Informative methodologies such as implementation science and community partnership.
- High-priority areas of public health that impact pregnant people and/or their infants, such as the COVID pandemic, the opioid crisis, impacts of climate change, and lactation safety;
- Leverage our affiliation to fulfill our mutual mission of education, research, and clinical care and to develop a diverse group of young academic investigators who will take advantage of this multisite clinical trial infrastructure and increase the diversity of leaders in Maternal Fetal Medicine.
Call for Proposals
The MFMU Network collaboration offers significant opportunities for the UCSF and west-coast community. For those interested in leveraging the Network’s large datasets or contributing to study proposals—please reach out to Drs. Norton or Sparks to learn more.
We are thrilled for Dr. Norton and team to expand the MFMU Network’s opportunities to UCSF.
