Grant: Operating Grant

Preterm birth causes 30% of all deaths among newborn babies and is the leading cause of infant death and illness worldwide. Because the basic reason for preterm birth in at least half of pregnancies is still unknown, scientists have not been able to develop effective tools that can predict if a baby will be born too early. Inflammation (swelling of tissue, often caused by infection) is the biggest known cause of preterm birth. However, we do not know how inflammation relates to infections of the amniotic fluid that surrounds the unborn baby. It is hard to learn more about the role of amniotic fluid infections because current tests can only detect about 1% of existing germs. We have developed a broad approach to infection testing based on metagenomics, which means we can detect almost all the viruses and bacteria in a sample by looking for their unique genetic signature. This test will tell us, for the first time, how common amniotic fluid infections are in preterm birth and how these infections relate to the inflammation often seen in amniotic fluid prior to preterm birth. If confirmed in larger studies, these results may lead to better clinical tests for women at risk of preterm birth or preventative measures to reduce the rates of preterm birth.