Linda Van Marter, MD, MPH

Department	Newborn Medicine
Hospital Title	Associate in Medicine
Academic Title	Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Phone	617-355-6027
Fax	617-730-0486
Email	Linda Van Marter
Location	Office: Children's Hospital Boston 300 Longwood Avenue Hunnewell 4 Boston MA 02115 Clinical Core Group: Brigham and Women's Hospital

Research Overview 

As a neonatal epidemiologist, Linda Van Marter chose to study two important cardiopulmonary conditions: Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia (BPD) and Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension of the Newborn (PPHN).

Dr. Van Marter's research group was first to describe the association between maternal use of nonsteroidal antiinflammatory medications during pregnancy and increased risk of PPHN. For the past seven years, she has collaborated with Dr. Allen Mitchell and colleagues at Boston University's Slone Epidemiology Unit on a larger multi-center study expanding on their initial hypothesis and extending it to also evaluate the postnatal effects of SSRI use in pregnancy. Past clinical research collaborations include work with Dr. Stella Kourembanas and colleagues at Children's Hospital in a clinical trial of inhaled nitric oxide therapy for PPHN.

Dr. Van Marter's current research program aims to identify preventable antecedents of BPD, the most prevalent long-term morbidity of surviving preterm infants. Her fascination with the interface between biology and clinical practice led her to focus on disease causation as a function of the interactions among fetal development, neonatal physiology, and clinical management. Dr. Van Marter's collaboration with Dr. Alan Leviton on studies of neonatal neurological conditions provided the opportunity to extend these studies toward development of a research program focused on the epidemiology of chronic lung disease. Evaluating these data, her research group discovered increased risk of BPD associated with excessive fluid administration and aggressive mechanical ventilation. Their analyses of the impact of glucocorticoid treatment in the pre- and post-surfactant eras yielded contradictory results. More recent analyses evaluated the interactions among prenatal infection, sepsis, and mechanical ventilation in BPD pathogenesis. They are now engaged in collaborative projects with a number of laboratory scientists to assess the role of genomics in pulmonary development and pulmonary parenchymal and vascular responses to injury among their population of preterm infants.

Dr. Van Marter directs the Clinical and Biostatistical Core for the Children's Hospital Specialized Center of Research, "The Response of the Perinatal Lung to Injury: Injury, Inflammation, and Repair, " (PI: S. Kourembanas). The SCOR Core group has recruited >900 study subjects <29 weeks' gestation, and collected extensive clinical data as well as sequential biological samples for cytokine analyses. In the group's first bioassay paper, neonatology colleague Anne Cullen and senior author Mary Sunday reported the association between elevated neonatal urine bombesin-like-peptide levels in the first postnatal days and increased risk of BPD. The group currently is analyzing the roles, if any, of bilirubin (a powerful antioxidant), Heme oxygenase-1 polymorphisms, and vascular factors in BPD pathogenesis. They also have designed a clinical project to prospectively evaluate pulmonary hypertension among preterm infants with BPD.

About Linda Van Marter

Dr. Van Marter received her M.D. from the University of Pittsburgh and her MPH from Harvard School of Public Health. She completed an internship, residency, and fellowship at Children's Hospital Boston and the Joint Program in Neonatology, Boston.

Dr. Van Marter is a founding member, past-Secretary-Treasurer, past-President, and former AAP liaison of the Society for Pediatric and Perinatal Epidemiologic Research; a past Council member of the Eastern Society for Pediatric Research; and an abstract reviewer, session moderator, and featured speaker for the Pediatric Academic Societies' Neonatology and Neonatal Epidemiology sections.

Currently, Dr. Van Marter is Chairperson of the 3,000+ member Perinatal Section of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Key Publications

• Van Marter L, Kuban K, Leviton A, Allred E, Pagano M. Hydration in the first days of life and the risk of bronchopulmonary dysplasia. J Pediatr 1990;116:942-949.
   
• Van Marter L, Pagano M, Leviton A, Allred E, Kuban K. The rate of bronchopulmonary dysplasia differs with neonatal care practices. J Pediatr 1992;120:938-946.
   
• Van Marter L, Leviton A, Allred E, Pagano M, Sanocka U, Parad R, and Moore M, for the Developmental Epidemiology Network. Do markers of barotrauma and oxygen toxicity explain inter-hospital variation in rates of chronic lung disease? Pediatrics 2000; 105: 1194-1201.
   
• Van Marter L, Leviton A, Allred E, Pagano M, Sullivan K, Cohen A, Epstein M. Persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn and smoking and aspirin and nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug consumption during pregnancy. Pediatrics 1996; 97:658-63.
   
• Van Marter LJ, Dammann O, Allred EN, Leviton A, Pagano M, Moore M, Martin C, for the Developmental Epidemiology Network. Chorioamnionitis, mechanical ventilation, and postnatal sepsis as modulators of chronic lung disease in preterm infants. J Pediatr 2002;140:171-6.
   
• Chambers C, Hernandez-Diaz S, Van Marter LJ, Werler M, Mitchell A. SSRI exposure during pregnancy and the risk of persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn. N Engl J Med 2006;354:579-587.