Dr Helen Barrett a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Early Career Research Fellow and the Clinical Program Leader for the Chronic Disease Biology & Care Research Program at Mater Research. She is also the Director of Endocrinology at Mater Hospital Brisbane.

Helen is passionate about improving the outcomes for women and their babies during complex pregnancies and her research interests are strongly tied to her clinical work. Her current research is focused at reducing the risks during pregnancy for women with diabetes by devising better strategies for managing their diabetes prior to and during pregnancy. Most of her research has focused on exploring maternal and placental metabolism in complicated pregnancy, with emphasis on non-glucose metabolism as well as the role of the microbiome—the ecosystem of microbacteria that live inside the mother’s gut.

Helen’s research has already highlighted that a woman’s microbiome changes during pregnancy, and she has discovered a link between maternal gut microbiome and risk of developing high blood pressure and gestational diabetes in pregnant women with overweight and obesity. Building on these findings, Helen’s team is currently exploring how and why a woman’s gut health changes during pregnancy, particularly, in the context of diabetes, and how this impacts her baby’s health. They are also investigating whether probiotic use during pregnancy can alter a woman’s gut health, and whether this could be used to reduce the impact of gestational diabetes, or to potentially reduce the odds of developing gestational diabetes and other complications like high blood pressure. Helen is also exploring the role of maternal lipids in baby’s growth and exploring whether clinicians should manage maternal lipids in pregnancy for women with diabetes.

Helen has been continuously supported by fellowships from the Australian Diabetes Society’s (2015 ADS-Skip Martin Early Career Fellowship) and NHMRC (2017 Early Career Research Fellowship). She has also received funding for her research from the Diabetes Australia Research Program (DARP) and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP). Helen is a member of the Queensland Maternal and Perinatal Quality Council, the Society for Obstetric Medicine Australia New Zealand Council, and an editor for the Internal Medicine Journal, Australia.

“My passion for research comes from a need to ask and answer questions about how to better look after my patients and their families. I want women with diabetes and other complex maternal conditions in pregnancy to have the same pregnancy outcomes as women without these conditions. I want to give them more possible strategies and answers and improve the health of mother and baby.”