23/10/2012, Seggau Austria
ENA/EarlyNutrition research workshop on "The Placenta and its Role for Fetal an Neonatal Development"

An introduction to placental development clarified that the human placenta is different from animal placentas in many regards, not in the least in their structure. The current understanding of the molecular and cellular mechanisms of transplacental transfer of maternal nutrients to the fetus, foremost lipids and amino acids, involves a range of interdependent molecular players that thus contribute to the system complexity.

Observational and intervention studies in human and animals have placed the placenta as the primary target for the maternal environment, diet and lifestyle (‘maternal exposome’). Modulating the maternal exposome affects placental function, its haemodynamics and its epigenome with consequences for the growing fetus by altering its developmental plasticity. The workshop was chaired by Prof. Gernot Desoye, Medical University Graz, Austria.

  Agenda