Pharmacological and pathophysiological aspects of pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes & Obstetric complications and fetal neurodevelopmental outcomes.

Dr Cathal McCarthy 

Dr. Cathal McCarthy leads a translational obstetrics research group which investigates the signalling pathways causing pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes mellitus and the development of novel therapeutics to effectively treat these pregnancy complications. Pre-eclampsia (PE) and gestational diabetes (GDM) are two common complications of pregnancy and affect 15% of first time mothers. Both conditions share common pathophysiological features including mitochondrial dysfunction, inflammation, insulin resistance and widespread vascular endothelial dysfunction. My research group utilises a number of different approaches from cellular models, preclinical models and biological samples and applies various technologies to tease out the signalling mechanisms involved in these complications. This work is in collaboration with clinical colleagues in the  Dept. of Obstetrics and Gynaecology CUMH.  The other main interest of the research group is elucidating the biological connection between placental mediators of obstetric complications and adverse fetal neurodevelopmental outcomes in collaboration with colleagues in the Dept. of Anatomy & Neuroscience in UCC.

I welcome enquires from students interested in discussing MSc or PhD opportunities and post-doctoral researchers wishing to join the research group. If you have ideas for collaborations on existing work or would like to discuss your own research interests then there are a number of PhD studentships, Postdoctoral fellowships and other funding schemes available which I am more than happy to discuss this with you in the first instance by email  cmccarthy@ucc.ie

You can follow Dr McCarthy on Twitter @CMcCarthyLab