Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD)

We study how early-life exposures and experiences shape lifelong health. Our current research is focused on the role of maternal nutrition, infant feeding and human milk composition in growth and development during infancy and childhood.

Our team is transdisciplinary, combining expertise in molecular biology, epidemiology, statistics, nutrition, microbiome and maternal-child health. We collaborate and use model systems, clinical cohorts, and administrative databases to study DOHaD in cells, animals and human populations,

If you are interested in graduate or postgraduate training in the Azad Lab, please review this information.

Research Platforms

Current Projects

Human Milk and Lactation
  • Human milk oligosaccharides in the CHILD cohort: variation, determinants, and associations with infant microbiota and health
  • Human milk microbiota in the CHILD cohort: variation, determinants, and associations with infant microbiota and health
  • Genome-wide association studies of human milk composition
  • Immunomodulatory factors in breast milk and the development of allergic disease: translational research in pre-clinical models and the CHILD cohort
  • Lactation and innate immunity among mothers in the CHILD cohort
  • Sex differences in milk composition and lactation in humans and other mammalian species
Infant Feeding
  • Role of infant feeding practices in the development and prevention of chronic disease (allergies, asthma, obesity)
  • Matching Donor Human Milk on Maternal Secretor Status (MMOMSS): optimizing the prebiotic profile of donor human milk for preterm infants (pilot RCT)
  • Breastfeeding and child behaviour: understanding the link through five different pathways in the CHILD cohort
  • Stakeholder engagement to inform strategies for improving breastfeeding education in Manitoba schools
  • Human milk components and the nasal microbiota as causal factors in the prevention of wheezing and ear infections during the first year in the CHILD cohort
Microbiome
  • Causational roles of the gut microbiome in childhood asthma: leveraging the CHILD cohort study
  • Impact of human-milk based fortifiers on gut microbiota and oxidative stress in premature infants (RCT)
  • Prelacteal feeding, gut microbiome development, growth and resilience in Bangladeshi neonates
Other
  • Atopic sensitization and environmental exposures among urban vs. rural Manitoban children in the CHILD cohort
  • Determinants of child development as measured by the Early Development Instrument (EDI) in the Manitoba CHILD cohort
  • Prenatal exposure to non-nutritive sweeteners and cardiometabolic health: translational and mechanistic studies in the CHILD cohort and pre-clinical models
  • Childhood asthma and puberty: understanding the sex shift in asthma to female predominance in the CHILD cohort
  • Rapid research in the CHILD cohort to inform Canada’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Funding Partners