Adjunct Representatives

Lina Bergman

Dr. Lina Bergman is an obstetrician-gynaecologist who completed her PhD in 2017 with the title “Cerebral biomarkers in women with preeclampsia” at Uppsala University. She currently holds a 50% postdoctoral position with research conducted at Uppsala University, Gothenburg University and Stellenbosch University. Her main research areas are neurological complications in preeclampsia, early prediction of preeclampsia and prediction of adverse outcome in preeclampsia on the short- and long-term. She is the chair of the Swedish group for guidelines and research in preeclampsia and is currently preparing Swedish guidelines for management of preeclampsia.

IMPACT – Study for Improving Maternal, Pregnancy and Child ouTcomes
Together with a Swedish steering committee, Dr. Bergman is setting up a national cohort study (8 centers) with serum samples in the first trimester of pregnancy to develop a prediction model for preeclampsia in a Swedish setting with an estimated sample size of 30 000 women. The study has started to recruit in October 2018.

Cathy Cluver
Tygerberg Hospital, Stellenbosch University
Cape Town, South Africa

Dr. Cathy Cluver is an obstetrician-gynaecologist and maternal-fetal medicine subspecialist who is completing her PhD on the management and treatment of preterm preeclampsia. She is based at Tygerberg Hospital and Stellenbosch University in Cape Town, South Africa, where she leads the Preeclampsia Research Unit. The Preeclampsia Research Unit has two main arms—Therapeutic trials for novel treatments for preterm preeclampsia and the PReeclampsia Obstetric adVerse Events (PROVE) Biobank.

PROVE (Preeclampsia Obstetric Adverse Events) Biobank
Together with Dr. Berman, Dr. Cluver runs and manages the PROVE biobank with the aim to gain knowledge regarding organ failure in preeclampsia and primarily cerebral and cardiovascular complications. This will be achieved through the establishment of a bio- and databank at Tygerberg Hospital, Stellenbosch University, where longitudinal blood samples, placenta samples, cerebrospinal fluid and cord blood are collected together with a databank consisting of predictors and outcomes in agreement with the COLLECT database and in addition investigations such as MRI brain, estimation of cerebral blood flow through Doppler measurements, MRI heart and echocardiography for women with preeclampsia and organ complications and healthy pregnant controls. The results of the project will hopefully yield a possibility to customize treatment to specific organ involvement, reach new discoveries regarding future drug targets and facilitate surveillance and treatment of women at high risk of mortality and morbidity due to preeclampsia.

Therapeutic trials for novel treatments for preterm preeclampsia:
Together with international researchers, including Professors Sue Walker and Stephen Tong, Dr. Cluver has recently completed her first double blind randomised control trial of 40mg esomeprazole to treat preterm preeclampsia: the Preeclampsia Intervention with Esomeprazole (PIE) trial. 120 women with preterm preeclampsia were recruited in 14 months, plasma and placental samples were collected, analysed and have been stored for further research and detailed pharmacokinetic studies were performed. The team is currently recruiting for a second double blind randomised control trial where 3gm of daily metformin versus placebo is being assessed as a therapeutic for preterm preeclampsia (PI2 trial).

GO-PROVE – Gothenburg Preeclampsia Obstetric Adverse Events
Drs. Bergman and Cluver, together with a team of researchers from Gothenburg University including midwifes, anesthesiologist, radiologists and obstetricians, are setting up a biobank and database with the same predictors and some of the outcomes from PROVE. The project aims to discover new objective biomarkers as predictors for organ impairment in a Swedish setting on short- and long-term and to validate findings from PROVE.

Steven Korzeniewski
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI, USA

Dr. Korzeniewski is an Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Wayne State University located in Detroit, Michigan. With a broad multidisciplinary research background, his specific training and expertise is in epidemiology. His research seeks to identify early antecedents of placental dysfunction and related clinical disorders, and to determine the mechanistic pathways that link them to damage to offspring brain structure or functioning. Dr. Korzeniewski came to this line of work after spending several years as an aide for disabled children because he wanted to figure out what causes such suffering and how to prevent it.

Zaleha Abdullah Mahdy
The National University of Malaysia (UKM)
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Dr. Mahdy graduated with a basic medical degree from UKM in 1989. Between 1992 and 1998, she trained and obtained membership of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) in London, Masters in Ob-Gyn (UKM), and a Doctorate in Medicine (Newcastle University, United Kingdom). Her Ob-Gyn special interest area is maternal fetal medicine, specifically in preeclampsia research. She is currently Professor and Senior Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist at UKM Medical Centre in Kuala Lumpur, having finished her three-year term as Dean of the UKM Faculty of Medicine in February 2019. Between February 2016 and November 2017, she was also the Director of UKM’s teaching hospital. Until the end of 2020, she was an appointed council member of the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) for three terms. In 2018, she was appointed as a co-opted committee member of the Malaysian International Representative Committee (IRC) of the RCOG for one term. Currently she chairs the MMC Education Specialty Sub-Committee for Obstetrics and Gynaecology training. Dr. Mahdy has published 107 articles in journals, several books and chapters in books, and more than 150 abstracts and proceedings. She is an Associate Editor in the Editorial Board of three international journals – Frontiers in Medicine, Frontiers in Surgery, and BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth. Currently she heads the Health Technology Innovation Lab in UKM (HTIL@UKM) and her current research interests include medical virtual reality (m-VR), 3D animation for medical and health education, medical drone development, and mobile app design for antenatal care. She is the Vice Chairperson of the Malaysian Society for Simulation in Healthcare (MaSSH), Immediate Past President of the Perinatal Society of Malaysia, a trainer in iCOE (Intensive Course in Obstetric Emergencies) under the Obstetrical and Gynaecological Society of Malaysia (OGSM), and a member of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH).