Sandra Founds

Discovery of novel candidate genes expressed in the first trimester is highly important because these biomarkers derive from tissues at the time when, according to consensus, preeclampsia begins. Her work is guided by the central hypothesis that prediction will be possible through etiologic markers, with the goals of screening, early detection and patient-specific management of this potentially lethal disorder. Her scholarly contributions include well-cited peer reviewed publications. A seminal paper reporting the 36 novel preeclampsia candidates achieved “Top 10 Cited” in the peer-reviewed journal, Placenta. This paper and a publication that first depicted novel LAIR2 in leading edge invasive trophoblasts was discussed in Benirschke’s Pathology of the Human Placenta, a renowned reference in this field. As PI, she was awarded three internally funded competitive SON grants that provided funding for work that supported molecular studies to validate the candidates. One grant extends innovative phenotype-genotype pilot work. She received external funding from two prestigious organizations. The American Nurses Foundation Grant supported confirmatory studies of our candidate genes. The Preeclampsia Foundation Vision Grant supports preliminary investigations of maternal blood for proteins encoded by these genes. International collaborators recognized the value of this project by donating samples through the Gates Foundation Co-laboratory consortium. She is PI on a NIH R03 grant that proposes localizing all of these candidates in first trimester maternal and placental tissues. Findings have been disseminated in podium and poster sessions at meetings of the International Society for Nurses in Genetics (ISONG), the International Society for the Study of Hypertension in Pregnancy, and UWISON. She presented nationally at the sixth Symposium on the Functional Genomics of Critical Illness and Injury at NIH and at the prestigious Society for Gynecologic Investigation. She presents regionally for the Eastern Nurses Research Society (ENRS), and for local venues at the SON and Magee-Womens Research Institute, where she is the only nurse member. She received the 2012 ISONG Founders Award for Research.