About
Dr. Jessica Britt graduated magna cum laude from Lander University with a B.S. in Biology. In 2019, she received her PhD in Animal and Veterinary Sciences from Clemson University. During her doctorate, her research focused on maternal stress, placental physiology, and postnatal growth and development using sheep as a model. Her areas of interest involve the impact of maternal stressors during pregnancy on fetoplacental development, adverse birth outcomes and postnatal growth. During her PhD, she completed independent research in quantitative placental histology through collaborative efforts with the Clemson Light Imaging Facility and received formal training in Laser Capture Microdissection, RNAsequencing and bioinformatics which provides a unique skillset for application to clinical medicine. Dr. Britt currently serves as the Maternal-Child Health Project and Grants Coordinator for Prisma Health and has experience managing and implementing projects funded by the NIH, the March of Dimes, the Duke Endowment, BlueCross BlueShield, and South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. During her short time at Prisma she has served as the lead for the South Carolina CenteringPregnancy Statewide Expansion project and has been a co-investigator on two NIH-funded R01 grants: CRADLE, a randomized, controlled trial of CenteringPregnancy group prenatal care (R01 HD082311) and PIINC, an additional ancillary study to CRADLE evaluating biomarkers for women in group prenatal care (R01 HD092446-01A1). She also has several ongoing, internally funded projects including two Prisma Health Research Seed grants and has a history of successful collaborative projects with Clemson faculty.
How their research is transforming health care
Dr. Britt’s background in ovine research gives her a unique perspective into placental and fetal growth and development with direct application to clinical medicine. She has participated in several research studies that evaluate growth of the placenta and fetus over time in response to various maternal stressors with a focus on potential biomarker development. Her research is working to address a critical gap in clinical medicine where noninvasive, real-time assessment of the placenta during pregnancy is urgently needed. Additionally, Dr. Britt’s work as a co-investigator on the CRADLE and PIINC studies is helping to redefine successful delivery of prenatal care, address the racial disparity that exists in maternal and neonatal obstetric outcomes, and better understand the impact of maternal stress on development of the placenta. Dr. Britt also has an immense passion for teaching and mentoring. Her background in research development, data management, data collection, and statistics has provided her the opportunity to mentor and assist medical students, residents, and fellows in a variety of research projects.
Health research keywords
Prisma, Maternal child health, placenta, maternal stress, pregnancy, fetal development, feta programming
