The Powe clinical research group focuses on studying diabetes and the glucose metabolism of women who are pregnant or recently postpartum. Studies aim to improve our understanding of metabolic disease affecting this population by focusing on endocrine physiology and genetics. Current studies focus on detailed longitudinal characterization of glycemic physiology in pregnancy and examining approaches to parse heterogeneity among women with gestational diabetes (GDM). We have defined physiologic subtypes of gestational diabetes and are investigating translation of our findings to personalize therapy for women with gestational diabetes. Selected projects include:

1) GO MOMs – Glycemic Observation and Metabolic Outcomes in Mothers and Offspring. GO MOMs is a multicenter prospective longitudinal study designed to characterize the glycemic profile of pregnancy using continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) technology in order to develop criteria using CGM measurements and/or early pregnancy oral glucose tolerance testing (OGTT) that are predictive, along with clinical factors, of adverse pregnancy outcomes in mothers and their newborns.
2) SPRING – Study of Pregnancy Regulation of Insulin and Glucose. SPRING aims to characterize pregnancy-associated changes in insulin secretion and sensitivity, compare insulin secretion and sensitivity in high-risk women who do and do not develop GDM, examine the contribution of maternal genetics to glycemic physiology, and discover proteins secreted by the placenta that affect glycemia.
3) HINT-GDM – Heterogeneity Informed Nutritional Therapy for Gestational Diabetes Mellitus. HINT-GDM aims to develop dietary interventions to minimize glycemic excursions in distinct physiologic subtypes of GDM and prospectively confirm previously observed associations between physiologically-defined GDM subtypes and hyperglycemia-associated adverse outcomes.
4) MHC – The MGH Maternal Health Cohort. The MHC is a large electronic medical record-based cohort that collects medical and health information from women seen for prenatal care at MGH to study the effects of chronic diseases on pregnancy outcomes and pregnancy’s impact on women’s health. Pregnancy is an understudied area, so this protocol aims to examine risk factors that affect maternal and neonatal outcomes which will help inform future interventions designed to improve women’s health. A subset of women in MHC provided blood samples during their pregnancy which are available for
5) MGH2 – The MGH Maternal Genetics and Health Study. MGH2 will add genetic data to the MHC cohort to examine genetic determinates of maternal and infant health. Initial work will focus on the genetics of GDM.