The University of California, San Diego (UCSD) was awarded a $697,803 Project Grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) under the Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.865). The 5-year grant, effective September 17, 2024, will fund the development of a comprehensive Mother-Infant Metabolite-Transporter Atlas (MIMA). The project aims to delineate the network of transporters that regulate the exchange of thousands of metabolites, nutrients, and other small molecules across the maternal-fetal/infant tissue barriers, including the fetal blood-brain barrier and infant gut. The MIMA project will leverage advanced omics technologies and molecular structural biology to empirically validate the specificity of metabolite-transporter interactions and create novel nanobody reagents to study transporter localization and function. This research is expected to generate a comprehensive atlas that elucidates the "rules" governing tissue and whole-body homeostasis along the mother-infant axis, with applications in precision nutrition and medicine.
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