4 minute read
Dr. Michelle Mottola
Professor (Joint Appointment with Kinesiology)
More about herresearch https://bit.ly/MottolaInfo
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Contact Info mmottola@uwo.ca (519) 661-2111ext. 85480
s What are you currently working on?
“We're looking at the best strategy for preventing excessive pregnancy-related weight gain and gestational diabetes for individuals who are at high risk for getting diabetes during pregnancy. So according to Diabetes Canada, this includes individuals who identify as African, Asian, Hispanic, indigenous, or South Asian. We're trying to devise a methodological template that we can use to assist these high-risk ethno-culturally marginalized populations for gestational diabetes prevention. In order to do that, the strategies are focused on nutrition and physical activity, which are the componentswhich can reduce gestational diabetes risk. The population that we're working with right now is pregnant Arab individuals, and they're going to be assisting us in co-designing participatory research that incorporates their culture, their religious, and spiritual beliefs into a healthy nutrition and physical activity strategy. Oncewe get this template devised, then we can apply it to other high-risk groups that I mentioned. We’d like to work with other community members in London and hopefully beyond to develop other healthy lifestyle strategies that would also assist in these pregnant high-risk populations to reduce diabetes risk and excessive weight gain during pregnancy.”
What are some of your future research goals?
“Our team is in the process of developing an international center for maternal and child lifestyle development and learning. With our core team, we are going to be examining important facilitators and barriers to a healthy lifestyle within the Western research community and affiliates, specifically focusing on pregnant individuals so that we can help them adopt and maintain a healthy lifestyle during and after pregnancy. The reason why this is important is because these healthy maternal lifestyles canbe passed downthrough fetal development. What she does during pregnancy is important, but she's also a role model for the infant, the toddler, the child, her family. If we can assist individually within the family to start a healthy lifestyle, then you can see there how there might be kind of a snowball effect with this.Itwill help to prevent diseases such as diabetes that I've mentioned, but also obesity and heart disease.”
What are some steps that were influential to your career?
“I think a lot of it was luck. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I applied to the right universities, worked with incredible individuals, but I think the key here is that I took a multidisciplinary approach. To be able to become an individual that was able to marry the two disciplines together into a field is unusual. From my younger self, I think it's always wise to open different doors. That comes back to whatever interests you; don't be afraid to jump into an unfamiliar field because you're always going to learn something new, then maybe you can use what you learned to help youfurther pursue your interests.You just have to be diligentin pursuing your dreams. For me, I kept wondering whether exercise was safe during pregnancy. I started off with the animal modelwhen I was exercisingpregnant rats during my PhD dissertation. Now, my research is community and human-based, but you have to start somewhere.”
What drove youto your area of research?
“I'm an embryologist and an anatomist by training, but I'm also an exercise physiologist. I have a joint position between anatomy and cell biology and kinesiology and health sciences, so you can see that it's kind of a way to marry the two disciplines together. What got me interested in pregnancy and exercise was learning about the exercise physiology component first and then ending with a PhD in anatomy and cell biology. As an embryologist, I've always been interested in the effects of maternal exercise and a healthy lifestyle on the mother, but also in how that affects the developing fetus. How can a healthy lifestyle prevent chronic diseases in both the mother and the baby? I really like the phrase, “the egg that formed you was created when your grandmother was pregnant with your mom”. It shows the importance of the maternal environment for two, even three generations. The downstream epigenetic effects that can happen during pregnancy are important for the developing fetus long-term. That’s what drove me – it was this combination of my embryology training and my exercise physiology training.”
What is your favourite thing about research?
“I like to think of it like the brain think tank–interacting with colleagues, with students, and all the brilliant minds to discuss problems in the field, and then trying to determine ways to solve those problems. That’swhat makes research fun–deciding on one particular question, generating an experimental design, and then looking at the results and seeing that it may not be what you anticipated. That means that there will be more questions to ask. That’s what makes research exciting, that it's never a dead end. Research is exciting because it's dynamic. Specifically in my field, I get to see pregnant women when they come into the lab and then we follow them through pregnancy. Then, I get to go and measure the baby within six to 18 hours after birth. So, I get to meet the little one at birth and we follow the mom and the baby up to one year after birth. I get to see the resultsof my work during pregnancy in the babies. I get to see how they reached their developmental milestones.That’sa perk for me becauseit's a very dynamic lab with a lot of little ones running around.”
