Timothy Regnault
Professor, Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology and Physiology & Pharmacology, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University
Scientist, Division of Maternal, Fetal & Newborn Health, Children's Health Research Institute
Western-DSB, 2021 (Office)
519.661.2111 x 83528
tim.regnault@uwo.ca
Biography
My research is centered around going in some way to achieve UN SDG 3 - Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages (https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal3), with specific foci on Targets 3.4 (By 2030, reduce by one third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental health and well-being) and 3.7 (By 2030, ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services, including for family planning, information and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes). To contribute to these targets, my research has centered on techniques involving the study of how factors associated with adverse in utero environments (e.g. low oxygen, maternal high fat and sugar exposure) that lead to hypoxia and oxidative stress in utero, negatively impact placental and fetal development and function and promote an increased risk of non-communicable diseases (NCDs - CVD, diabetes, obesity and hypertension) and metabolic disease in post-natal life. Since the late 1990s, I have used large (sheep – NIH and NSERC funded), small (guinea pig/rat – CIHR/NIH funded and rabbit – CAPS/AMOSO funded) in vivo systems, complemented with ex vivo methodologies, tissue and cell culture-based techniques (2D and organoid systems) to address these research questions, to promote the training of new investigators and to engage in public dissemination forums. Since moving my research to Canada in 2005, after my post-doctoral and junior investigator faculty training in the US, my research efforts have expanded to include new and different animal fetal and adult organ systems and techniques and to integrate studies with human tissue and human data bases. I have established ongoing collaborations with colleagues at Western and other national and international institutions with related fetal programming interests. More recently I have established collaborations with investigators in imaging modalities such as PET/CT and MRI and hyperpolarized MRI, as well expanding the laboratories capacity to undertake metabolomic and lipidomic analyses, that have expanded my investigative research abilities. These important local, national, and international collaborations have fueled an expanding productive research effort. My current research projects are focused on the understanding the impact of environment, including obesogenic diets and placental insufficiency, upon placental and fetal organ systems and later life health risk trajectories and potential modulating interventions in in vivo and ex vivo systems.
