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Rhodes, Erin
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Dr. Bianchi oversees research on pediatric health and development, maternal health, reproductive health, intellectual and developmental disabilities, and rehabilitation medicine, among other areas. Her translational research focuses on two broad themes: prenatal genomics with the goal of advancing noninvasive prenatal DNA screening and diagnosis and investigating the fetal transcriptome to develop new therapies for genetic disorders that can be given prenatally. Dr. Bianchi's laboratory seeks to advance understanding of fetal and placental biology through sequence analysis of nucleic acids that circulate within the pregnant woman's blood. The information acquired is used to improve counseling and prenatal care. The laboratory has a long-term commitment to developing prenatal treatments for Down syndrome. They hypothesize that giving safe and efficacious medications to pregnant women who are carrying fetuses diagnosed with trisomy 21 will reduce oxidative stress and inflammation, promote the production of new fetal nerve cells, and lead to improvement in brain growth, all of which will ultimately improve brain function, learning and memory after birth.