Andrea Edlow, M.D., M.Sc.

Dr. Andrea Edlow is a member of the Obstetrics and Gynecology faculty at Harvard Medical School and a Maternal-Fetal Medicine specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital. 

The Edlow laboratory focuses on the effects of maternal immune activation (including obesity, metabolic disease, viral/bacterial infections in pregnancy) on fetal brain development and offspring behavior, and how these effects may be modified by placental factors and fetal sex.  The laboratory also explores fetal and offspring metabolic programming and offspring eating behavior in the setting of maternal immune activation.

Dr. Edlow is the PI of the Mass General Brigham COVID-19 Pregnancy Biorepository, one of the largest such repositories in the country with samples from over 1000 participants. The biorepository also includes samples from women receiving COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy.  

The Edlow lab was one of the first to use amniotic fluid supernatant and umbilical cord blood to investigate real-time fetal brain development in obese human pregnancy.

Gene expression profiling of these two biofluids identified abnormal gene expression signatures in fetuses of obese women, highlighting dysregulated brain development and increased inflammation.

Using a validated mouse model of maternal diet-induced obesity, we have demonstrated significant sex differences in the impact of maternal obesity on embryonic brain development, catecholamine neurotransmitter signaling, offspring neurobehavior, and offspring metabolic profiles. 

Ultimately, we anticipate this work will provide targets for a lifestyle/behavioral intervention, and possibly for prenatal therapies that could be given orally to obese pregnant women, to reverse or ameliorate deleterious structural and functional brain changes.

Dr. Edlow’s research has been funded by the Reproductive Scientist Development Program, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the March of Dimes, MGH ECOR, the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Simons Foundation.