Welcome to the Wilson Pregnancy Lab!
The Wilson Pregnancy Lab investigates the biology of the placenta across the continuum of pregnancy—from early development and reproductive origins to placental function, disease, and environmental influences. We integrate molecular biology, multi-omics technologies, computational biology, machine learning, and experimental models to understand how genetic, epigenetic, cellular, and environmental factors shape placental health. Our research investigates the origins of placental health, the mechanisms regulating placental development and dysfunction, experimental models of pregnancy complications, non-invasive approaches to assess placental health, and the impact of environmental exposures on pregnancy outcomes. Together, these studies aim to uncover the biological pathways contributing to pregnancy complications and advance approaches for their prediction, prevention, and treatment.
Wilson Pregnancy Lab Updates
2026-06-08. Mel’s paper titled Investigating the association of fetal sex and hypertensive pregnancy outcomes across varying conception types: a retrospective cohort study is published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Human Reproduction.
2026-06-01. Congratulations to Keaton for being awarded an Ontario Graduate Scholarship for his PhD work!
2026-05-25. Welcome Will Hunt to the lab! Will will be completing a Mitacs internship focusing on calling copy number variation in cell-free DNA.
2026-05-21. Congratulations to Kriesha and Rinsy for completing their undergraduate degrees and convocating!
2026-05-14. Congratulations to Kriesha for winning Best Oral Presentation by at Undergraduate student at McMaster’s RT Weaver OBGYN Department Research Day!
2026-05-13. Kriesha will present her work titled “Exploring the Genetics of Lipid Metabolism in Preeclampsia” at McMaster’s RT Weaver OBGYN Department Research Day.
2026-04-22. Congratulations to both our MSc students, Natalie and Keaton, for being awarded the Faculty of Health Sciences Outstanding Achievement Award!
2026-04-08. Congratulations to Rinsy for successfully defending her undergraduate thesis!
2026-04-07. Congratulations to both Kriesha and Rinsy for completing their undergraduate degress!
2026-03-31. Mel will present her most recent work titled “Impact of biopsy on trophectoderm gene expression: a preliminary investigation into placental disorders after PGT” at the McMaster Medical Science Research Day
2026-03-20. Congratulations to Natalie for winning runner-up for best MSc presentation at the BBSRS research day!
2026-03-20. Natalie will give a talk at the BBSRS Research day titled “Tissue-specific genetic and epigenetic characterization of maternal plasma cell-free DNA”
2026-03-08. Sam will give a talk titled “Messages from the Placenta: Molecular signals of Pregnancy Health” as a keynote speaker at the International Women’s and Children’s Health Conferece.
2026-02-26. Laiba and Keaton’s paper titled Distinct DNA methylation signatures in maternal blood reveal unique immune shifts in preeclampsia and the pregnancy-postpartum transition was published in PLOS ONE.
2026-02-19. Sam is a co-author on the paper A pan-cancer compendium of 1294 plasma cell-free DNA methylomes and fragmentomes enabling multicancer detection in Nature Cancer.