Our health potential is imprinted in utero and strongly depends on the physical and mental health of our mothers during pregnancy, including their microbiota, the microorganism that resides inside us. Dysregulations can negatively affect embryo implantation and fetus development, leading to a variety of negative obstetric conditions from miscarriage to inadequate fetal growth and physical and neurological development.

Bea Lab focuses on the study of the complex and well-orchestrated dynamic processes that take place during pregnancy and postpartum to understand how their dysregulation leads to obstetric complications and identify possible new treatments. For that, we employ systems biology approaches, an ideal framework for understanding complex processes by integrating large complex datasets (e.g., genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics) using statistical and computational methods. Systems Biology also allows to merge human-microbiota information to identify the intricate relationships between us and the microorganisms that live within us. Our vision is to translate our research findings into easy-to-implement diagnostic tools in clinical settings and into precision microbiome-derived or -inspired treatments. We expect that our contribution could provide every human being the possibility to be their best at birth.