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A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · Aug 19

Here (in work led by Dr Anna Boss and her student Isha) we are imaging the blood vessels in the placenta (red) and the surrounding tissue (green) in 3D to see how the vascular architecture of the placenta is impacted by obesity.

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A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · Aug 19

A shout out to various members of my team who have been spending way too much time recently in dark basements imaging bits of placenta with the new lightsheet microscope (with much troubleshooting) and processing the resulting datasets… but the results when it works! 🤩 @anzpra1.bsky.social

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A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · Aug 14

And yes, I did send many follow up emails over this time, and threatened to pull it at least once!

A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · Aug 14

New record - got a manuscript outcome notification today for a paper I submitted in November 2023 🤯 TWENTY-ONE MONTHS to reach a first decision of minor revisions. The system is broken. 😒 #atleastitwasntrejected

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A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · Jul 31

This paper has been building for a while - started by gene expression work done by Teena Gamage in her PhD, and then contains almost all of Cherry Sun’s PhD work following this up in functional experiments. Amazing work by these two! 🤩

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A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · Jul 31

This helps explain why FGR placentas are smaller and less able to transport oxygen and nutrients to the baby. Knowing this will hopefully let us identify therapeutic strategies to target this upstream dysfunction, in turn improving a range of downstream consequences for the placenta.

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A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · Jul 31

Feels like it’s been a while between papers.. but pleased to say our latest is now out! Here we used the side-population technique to isolate trophoblast stem cells from term placentas, showing that in FGR they grow slower, die more easily, and have impaired differentiation. doi.org/10.1016/j.ye...

Redirecting

kwnsfk27.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me

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A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · Jul 25

Fun day at the Rosehill College Hauora expo sharing our love of all things placenta, and our work aimed at better interpreting ultrasound in pregnancy to improve detection of at risk babies. New hologram was a hit (looks better irl), and tons of kids through 😃 #teamplacenta #pregnancymodellinggroup

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A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · May 15

(Final paper from her PhD hopefully out soon 🤞🤞... watch this space!)

A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · May 15

Congrats to Dr Cherry Sun on officially joining the floppy hat club yesterday! 🥂🌟 Cherry’s thesis showed functional impairments in trophoblast stem cells from FGR placentae - they grow slower, die easier, & differentiate differently - which may explain placental changes seen in this disorder.

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A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · May 7

Super grateful for this generous philanthropic support of our work to develop sex-specific virtual placenta models, which we hope to use to develop more personalised tools to aid early identification of babies at risk of being born dangerously small.

www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2025...

Alumnus bolsters world-first projects at University research institutes - The University of AucklandFacebookTwitterYouTubeLinkedInInstagramWomen's Refuge

Up to 30 percent of babies in neonatal intensive care will be impacted by a rare disorder. Currently, that equates to around 500 babies born each year who have a rare undiagnosed genetic disorder.

www.auckland.ac.nz

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A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · Mar 28

My pleasure to talk about our work on data-driven models of the feto-placental circulation at #SRI2025 in Charlotte today. Thank you to the audience for so much wonderful interaction after! 🙏

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A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · Feb 8

Saw the below chart, realised that individual universities in the US can get about 5x more $ from the NIH alone than our entire country has available to apply for from its two biggest funders (HRC and Marsden, together ~$200 million NZD). Cool cool.

James Santelli @santelli.bsky.social · Feb 8

All this futzing with NIH research funding sure would be lousy for a region where the largest employer ranks third in NIH funding nationally.

Say, what’s this?

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Johns Hopkins University
$839,852,301

2
University of California, San Francisco
$823,760,533

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University of Pittsburgh
$675,447,236

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Duke University
$672,506,294

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University of Pennsylvania
$668,378,172

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Stanford University
$651,714,427

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University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
$644,315,349

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Leidos Biomedical Research, Inc.
$625,102,662

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Washington University, St. Louis
$620,587,925

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Columbia University Health Sciences
$616,772,648

University of Pittsburgh ranks third in NIH funding, placing it within a cohort of very prestigious institutions. The ranking list is compiled and announced by the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research. This ranking is based on the NIH funding report made available through the NIH RePORTER. The latest ranking available corresponds to Federal Fiscal Year 2022.
Source: Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research (BRIMR)

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A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · Feb 5

👏👏👏 what BMJ said 👏👏👏

Richard Sever @richardsever.bsky.social · Feb 5

BMJ: "instruct[ing] scientists to withdraw or retract articles from journals is sinister...We will not retract articles on the basis that they contain so-called banned words.." www.bmj.com/content/388/...

Medical journal editors must resist CDC order and anti-gender ideology

The news that on 31 January 2025 the Trump administration instructed scientists employed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to withdraw or retract articles from medical and sci...

www.bmj.com

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Reposted by A/Prof Jo James

Euan Thomson @drugdatadecoded.ca · Feb 4

The list of forbidden words for scientific researchers in the United States of America in the year 2025.

Darby Saxbe @darbysaxbe.bsky.social · Feb 4

🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.

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A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · Feb 3

I’m keeping my upcoming March 🇺🇸 conference plans that are booked because a) can’t get the money back, and b) our US colleagues in women’s health at said conference are not the enemy and need our support. But I will be trying to avoid US travel after that tbh.

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A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · Jan 31

Larry has a real one in his office next door to me (not signed), I’m not sure he will part with it when he retires, but I swear to god if it isn’t left to me in his will….

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A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · Jan 31

a man in a blue shirt says " it 's beautiful " in white letters

ALT: a man in a blue shirt says " it 's beautiful " in white letters

media.tenor.com

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A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · Jan 30

Hey placenta/pregnancy people - happy to share that we've now set #ANZPRA up over here! 🥳

Australian and New Zealand Placental Research Association @anzpra1.bsky.social · Jan 30

👋 Hi, Bluesky! 🦋 We’re ANZPRA, a society for researchers in Australia & NZ studying all aspects of the placenta and its role in pregnancy. Follow us for updates on placental biology, pregnancy disorders & research community news! #TeamPlacenta #PregnancyResearch 🔬

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A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · Jan 3

Beautiful review on the placental vasculature and is known of its altered function in pre-eclampsia by Hanna Allerkamp and colleagues at MedUniGraz👏 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Exploring the Lifeline: Unpacking the Complexities of Placental Vascular Function in Normal and Preeclamptic Pregnancies

The proper development and function of the placenta are essential for the success of pregnancy and the well-being of both the fetus and the mother. Placental vascular function facilitates efficient f....

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Reposted by A/Prof Jo James

The Guardian @theguardian.com · Jan 2

We can tell the truth about pregnancy without scaring women to death – in fact, it’s vital that we do | Emily Oster

Many women have no idea about the potential complications until they happen. Without discussion there is no treatment or prevention There is an inherent tension between two basic facts about childbirth. On the one hand, it has happened billions and…

www.theguardian.com

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A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · Dec 21

It’s impossible to get as it has been out of print so long. When Larry retires and the copy I use is at risk of leaving the building you will find me begging desperately at his door for the mere hope of it passing on to me… 🤞🤞

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A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · Dec 16

This research should be done in NZ.. because I am the one who had the idea and has the background that best places me to do the research, and you should count yourself lucky that I currently still live/work in NZ and it can be done here 🤷‍♀️. Honestly 🤬 to all of this.

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A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · Dec 10

Congratulations to Anandita Umapathy on her PhD graduation today! Great to have her back in NZ to celebrate together 🥳 🥂#sillyhatday @aucklanduni.bsky.social

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A/Prof Jo James @drjojames.bsky.social · Dec 6

This was part of the great work Cherry Sun did in her PhD (with more to come..), and was made possible thanks to funding from @ranzcog.bsky.social Mercia Barnes Trust and the AMRF (@medresearchnz.bsky.social) who supported her PhD scholarship 🙏

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