K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award

Our K99/R00 award "Pregnancy weight trajectories and offspring adiposity" (K99HD086304) was awarded. This award will provide $1,005,402 for Dr. Widen's training and research for the next five years!

This Pathway to Independence Award will allow Dr. Widen to gain additional training in advanced trajectory modeling and human phenotyping. The research component of this project applies innovative trajectory modeling approaches to examine maternal weight trajectories in pregnancy. For the K99, Dr. Widen will leverage existing data from the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health Mothers and Newborns Study and the NICHD Fetal Growth Study to accomplish the following specific aims: 1) Identify maternal weight trajectories reflecting timing and overall pattern of gestational weight gain using nonparametric trajectory methods and to examine determinants of these trajectories. 2) Examine how maternal weight trajectories relate to child growth, body composition and cardiometabolic health. For the R00, Dr. Widen will conduct a pilot study to evaluate whether maternal fat mass changes are associated with specific maternal weight trajectories during pregnancy and neonatal adiposity.