2018-2019 Research Study

The Brianna Marie Foundation has partnered with the Fetal Hope Foundation and awarded The University of California San Francisco 2018 $50K Brianna Marie Memorial Grant to further their research titled: Non-Immune Hydrops Fetalis: Toward a Precision-Based Approach.

The group at UCSF is focused on prenatal evaluation and diagnosis for cases of non immune hydrops fetalis, with an emphasis on the ultimate development of innovative in utero treatments to improve perinatal outcomes. In nearly half of all hydrops cases, the cause is unknown and their goal is to uncover the wide spectrum of potential reasons with thorough genetic testing during pregnancy. This will be a multi-center collaboration to create a large and diverse NIHF registry.

In addition, they will ultimately go beyond this to develop and apply pre- and postnatal treatments specific to the underlying disease and genotype (such as in utero enzyme replacement therapy and stem cell transplantation). Their belief is that with this research, they can significantly improve their ability to identify the cause of hydrops, and importantly, develop an approach to perinatal treatment that will significantly improve the prognosis for each affected fetus.