Areas of interest

Preterm birth

Research group

Bioenergetics in Reproduction

Biography

Dr Stacey Ellery is a pregnancy physiologist investigating energy homeostasis, maternal nutrition and obstetric complications that are underpinned by cellular energy failure.

Dr Ellery is particularly interested in finding out why 800,000 neonatal deaths and three million infant deaths occur each year as a result of placental insufficiency and hypoxia. Dr Ellery is passionate about developing therapies that can cross economical boundaries to be made available in remote and low resource settings, where the majority of these tragedies take place.

To achieve this, Dr Ellery has developed a research program that includes retrospective and prospective clinical studies as well as the use of pre-clinical models. This program includes international teams of clinicians and laboratory-based scientists across Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

Dr Ellery is internationally recognised for her research program on creatine metabolism in reproduction, pregnancy and newborn health. Research projects she currently lead use a range of in vitro techniques, preclinical models, human cohort studies and clinical trials covering the topics of

• Placental and pregnancy bioenergetics
• Labour and birth
• Intrapartum asphyxia
• Preterm birth 
• Reproductive success and infertility. 

Dr Ellery has received more than $6.2M in project funding, professional honours, awards and fellowships. Of this more than $3.1 million has been awarded as CIA or sole recipient from funding bodies such as the NHMRC ($4.1 million), MRFF and the Cerebral Palsy Alliance.

READ MORE | Creatine during pregnancy – a scientist’s story, Creatine and pregnancy – what you need to know