Congenital Heart Disease Center
Probing a remaining mystery of congenital heart disease bright mind
Jennifer Duncan, MD As a pediatric intensive care doctor, Dr. Jennifer Duncan takes care of some of St. Louis Children’s Hospital’s sickest children. She meets families at the most dire times of their lives and supports them on their journey. She admits that it might get a little overwhelming if she didn’t have another professional outlet. But as one of the CDI’s first faculty scholars, Dr. Duncan is able to step away from the bedside and into the laboratory where she can look at the problems she confronts clinically under an entirely different light. “Deciding to do a critical care fellowship gave me the opportunity to return to the lab. That’s when I realized I wanted to build a career that combined clinical work and research. When I joined the faculty here I found a great mentor and knew that I’d made the right decision to take my career in this direction.” In her lab, Dr. Duncan looks to explain why some children with congenital heart disease do much better after surgery than others with seemingly the same problem. “Not being able to predict how a child responds to treatment got me thinking about whether the health of the mother makes a difference, and if so, would it help to intervene earlier.” What doctors do know is that children with congenital heart disease are more likely to have mothers with obesity issues or diabetes. But what is the connection? Dr. Duncan believes it has something to do with the metabolic programming that occurs during the time that the fetal heart is developing. “So the more we can understand about how mom’s nutritional status affects the baby’s metabolism, the better we’ll be able to develop new strategies to keep congenital heart defects from developing or improve outcomes for patients who require surgery.” Jennifer Duncan, MD, pediatrics, meets families at the most dire times of their lives and supports them on their journey.
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