“One of the wonderful things about being a scientist is when things affect you, you can go after them,” Melissa J. Moore, PhD, told the Boston Globe in a story about how she became interested in researching preeclampsia when she was diagnosed with it. “It’s near and dear to my heart.”
Dr. Moore is the Eleanor Eustis Farrington Chair in Cancer Research, professor of biochemistry & molecular pharmacology, co-director RNA and Neurotherapeutics Institutes and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. She and Ananth Karumanchi, MD, associate professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, were recently awarded a $1 million grant from the Bill & Melissa Gates Foundation to develop a novel, RNA-based therapy for preeclampsia.
They met 10 years ago at Beth Israel, when Moore, 30 weeks pregnant with her daughter, was admitted with preeclampsia. Dr. Karumanchi asked Moore to participate in a study exploring the condition, and, years later, they began working together. Moore’s daughter, Anna Loomis, was born prematurely, and is a healthy child today.
In this video, Dr. Moore explains preeclampsia and her research.
