Master i bioteknologi Nora Hersoug Nedberg

Avhandlingen er tilgjengelig her! The doctoral thesis! Prøveforelesningen: starter kl. 10.15 og kan strømmes her. “Rhesus alloimmunization in pregnancy – diagnostics and treatment in the past, present and future” The trail lecture will be streamed here! Disputasen starter 12.15 . Auditoriet er åpent for publikum, men disputasen vil også bli strømmet her. Opptak av disputasen vil være tilgjengelig i et døgn. The auditorium is open to the public. The defense will still be streamed here. Recordings of the trial lecture and the defense will be available for 24 hours.

Populærvitenskapelig sammendrag:

Fetal/neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia (FNAIT) is a rare pregnancy disorder that occurs when the mother’s immune system develops antibodies towards platelets of the fetus. FNAIT can cause severe brain bleeding in the fetus or newborn and today we lack good tools to identify which pregnancies are at high risk for this condition. So-called platelet antibodies may not only target fetal platelets but also cells within the placenta. This thesis explores how placenta is implicated in FNAIT.

By examining placentas from women giving birth in Norway and Poland, we found that women with platelet antibodies frequently had chronic inflammation in their placentas. Chronic inflammations in the placenta are associated with increased risk of reduced birth weight in the newborn. We also found that we may increase the ability to predict neonates affected with severe FNAIT by measuring placenta proteins in the mother’s blood during pregnancy. Finally, with the use of highly advanced microscopes we explored where in the placenta these antibodies may bind, and our findings challenge what we thought we knew - confirming that the devil is in the details!

Hovedveileder
Professor Heidi Tiller, Institutt for klinisk medisin, UiT Norges arktiske universitet

Biveiledere
Overlege, ph.d. Gitta Turowski, Oslo Universitetssykehus.
Forsker, ph.d. Mona Nystad, Universitetssykehuset Nord Norge.

Bedømmelseskomité
Lotte Elisabeth van der Meeren, Leiden University Medical Centre – 1. opponent.
Kjell Åsmund Blix Salvesen, NTNU – 2. opponent.
Professor Sonja Steigen, Institutt for medisinsk biologi, Det helsevitenskapelige fakultet, UiT– leder av komité.

Disputasleder: Professor Tor Stuge, Institutt for medisinsk biologi, UiT Norges arktiske universitet.