Infant Estrogen Levels Tracked Through Diaper Research
With the help of babies and more than 5,000 of their diapers, Emory University researchers have developed an accurate, noninvasive method to determine estrogen levels in infants. "The development of robust, noninvasive methods to measure these hormones in infants allows us to further investigate the association between postnatal hormone production and the development of sex-specific biology and behavior," says Michelle Lampl, PhD, MD, Emory University Samuel Candler Dobbs professor of anthropology, and senior author of a paper in Frontiers in Systems Biology describing the new method. "The development of an assay to measure estrogen from diapers might initially strike one as unnecessary or strange, but the need is real," says Sara Berga, MD, James Robert McCord professor and chairman, Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Emory University School of Medicine. Dr. Berga is also an ACTSI investigator. Read more…