Dr. Ramkumar Menon, professor and director of the division of basic and translational research in obstetrics and gynecology at The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and one of two principal investigators at the new March of Dimes Texas Collaborative Prematurity Research Center, discusses his career and focus at the PRC: pregnancy-on-a-chip technology that simulates human pregnancy and will be used to validate drugs that may reverse preterm birth.

Dr. Catherine Spong, professor and chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and one of two principal investigators at the new March of Dimes Texas Collaborative Prematurity Research Center, discusses her career, research, and focus at the PRC: examining how nutrition, socioeconomic factors, the placenta, and bacterial vaginosis affect pregnancy outcomes.

Dr. Lynne Sykes, co-director of the March of Dimes Prematurity Research Center at Imperial College London, discusses her new paper detailing links between a woman’s blood type and her risk of spontaneous preterm birth depending on her gynecological and obstetrical history.

Dr. Wendy Kuohung, a 2025 March of Dimes Discovery Research Grant winner, discusses her original research to find novel therapeutics to treat preeclampsia associated with APOL1 gene variants.

March of Dimes Research Center for Advancing Maternal Health Equity investigator Dr. Sindhu Srinivas and doula Alexia Doumbouya discuss leading a randomized controlled trial (RCT) on whether doula integration throughout pregnancy, birth, and postpartum can decrease maternal depression and anxiety.

Dr. Lars Bode, the founding director of the Human Milk Institute at UC San Diego, the university’s Larsson-Rosenquist Foundation Chair of Collaborative Human Milk Research, and a professor of pediatrics at the university, discusses human milk, informally known as breast milk, and all its healing properties—that are not only crucial for mothers and babies, but may benefit people of all ages.

Prof. Dennis Lo, the winner of the 2025 March of Dimes Richard B. Johnston, Jr., MD Prize and the inventor of non-invasive prenatal testing, or NIPT, discusses the road to the discovery, the power of cell free DNA to detect cancer, and one of the places in the world he still hasn't been.

Dr. Tony Capra and Dr. Marina Sirota, scientists from the March of Dimes Prematurity Research Center (PRC) at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), discuss their foundational finding that spontaneous, or unplanned, preterm birth is fundamentally different from indicated preterm birth.