Since joining Pitt Nursing’s faculty in 2024, Lacey Heinsberg has been bringing a rare blend of expertise to nursing research. On top of a PhD, she holds bachelor’s degrees in both civil engineering and nursing, and her cutting-edge research spans genetics, precision health and environmental health.
“Pitt Nursing leads the way in genetics research, and there was no question that this was where I belonged,” said Heinsberg, who has since pioneered research in areas of critical importance.
Heinsberg led the first-ever study of concentrations of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—better known as “forever chemicals”—in infants from Samoa, an independent nation. She is now studying PFAS and how these chemicals may alter biological signals that help regulate gene activity in moms and babies in American Samoa, a U.S. territory.
She has also been leading some of the earliest studies of infants who carry a specific variant within a gene called CREBRF. Found only in Pacific Islanders, this variant is linked to higher rates of obesity but half the risk of diabetes, challenging conventional assumptions about what higher body mass means for an individual’s health.
While most CREBRF studies have focused on adults, Heinsberg has directed her attention to mothers and their babies to understand how genetics, blood sugar and other health factors during pregnancy affect children later in life. She is leading a study called HOPE that monitors the health of American Samoan mom and baby pairs from the third trimester to 6 months postpartum. The goal of that research is to determine how the CREBRF gene variant protects babies over time and affects their growth.
She is also contributing to another study, called GROW, that tracks the blood sugar of American Samoan moms to learn about the onset of gestational and type 2 diabetes. Ultimately, she hopes to extend this research to include babies, shedding light on their long-term risk factors.
Her work could yield important clinical applications, including a simple screening tool that could raise alarms earlier in pregnancy if moms and their babies are at risk of poor health outcomes.
“Babies born to moms with gestational diabetes have an increased risk of type 2 diabetes and obesity later in life—years later—but the foundation for that is established here during pregnancy,” she said.
Though Heinsberg’s path to nursing research was indirect, her engineering background has aided her research on environmental health—an area she hopes to explore in even greater depth in the future.
“I think everybody here has a winding journey, but I'm so glad I pursued this career path,” Heinsberg said. “I'm meant to be in research.”