March of Dimes Opens Texas Collaborative Prematurity Research Center

Latest center in international network established to accelerate clinical breakthroughs in maternal and infant health launches in Texas, home to one of the highest preterm birth rates in the US

ARLINGTON, Va., Oct. 29, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- March of Dimes, a national leader in maternal and infant health research, today announced the launch of the Texas Collaborative Prematurity Research Center (PRC), uniting scientists from The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) at Galveston and UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.  The new center expands the organization's research portfolio with "pregnancy-on-a-chip" technology, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered drug repurposing, and inquiry into how nutrition and socioeconomic factors shape pregnancy outcomes—advancing the fight against preterm birth and improving the health of all moms and babies.

At 10.4%, the US preterm birth rate is one of the highest among developed nations, and in the state of Texas, the rate is higher still at 11.1%, according to 2023 March of Dimes data.

"Adding Texas to our Prematurity Research Center network is a critical milestone in accelerating our mission," said Cindy Rahman, President and CEO of March of Dimes. "Texas faces one of the highest preterm birth rates in the country, and by bringing together these powerhouse institutions into our larger research network, we're expanding our ability to move scientific discoveries from the lab into clinical practice faster. This collaboration underscores our unwavering commitment to research and our determination to help ensure every mom and baby has the healthiest possible start."

Led jointly by Catherine Spong, MD, (UT Southwestern) and Ramkumar Menon, PhD (UTMB), the new center will bring together two groundbreaking approaches: "pregnancy-on-a-chip" technology that can be used to validate medicines to combat preterm birth and in-depth studies of pregnancy drawn from one of the nation's busiest delivery networks. By combining these strengths, the PRC expands March of Dimes' research power—from testing promising treatments in the lab to understanding real-world drivers of preterm birth. This work positions the organization to make major strides in tackling the maternal and infant health crisis in the US.

The new center will harness the power of UTMB's pregnancy-on-a-chip, which allows scientists to study preterm birth in an in vitro model that offers a mirror image of human pregnancy and acts as a testing system for AI-chosen drugs that may reverse preterm birth. It will also leverage the extraordinary clinical power of UT Southwestern's large obstetrics practice. Delivering more than 13,000 pregnancies annually, the network's care teams have regular exposure to rare and adverse conditions for moms and babies, oversee an established community prenatal nutrition program, and have access to a large patient population to study and validate new diagnostics and therapeutics.

"It's hard to overstate the confidence, hope, excitement, and pride we have for the Texas Collaborative," said Dr. Emre Seli, March of Dimes Chief Scientific Advisor. "From a human pregnancy-mimicking system capable of rapidly testing medications and interventions, to a large cohort of moms and babies whose experiences, data, and insights can unlock new roads to prenatal health, this center is a research and innovation powerhouse. It adds a unique clinical and translational component to our offensive against preterm birth."

At UT Southwestern's William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital and Parkland Memorial Hospital, care teams deliver up to 50 babies a day, giving researchers unique insight into both common and uncommon pregnancy outcomes. Under the leadership of Principal Investigator Catherine Spong, Professor and Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the PRC team at UT Southwestern will collect data and learnings from this large and diverse patient population. Dr. Spong's focus includes how nutrition and socioeconomic factors shape pregnancy outcomes, while the scale of the cohort also opens the door to vital studies on birth defects, preeclampsia, placental dysfunction, preterm birth, and more.

UTMB's pregnancy-on-a-chip recreates key features of pregnancy using real maternal and fetal cells. This powerful tool lets researchers study how pregnancy is maintained, what triggers preterm birth, and how infections or medications can change its course. The result is a pregnancy model that can be used to study preterm birth and medications that may stop preterm birth. Under UTMB's Principal Investigator Dr. Menon, Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the PRC team at UTMB will use this technology to screen FDA-approved drugs identified by AI as having the potential to prevent preterm birth. Promising drug candidates could then move to clinical trials involving human subjects.

The Texas Collaborative joins March of Dimes PRCs at Stanford University; the University of Pennsylvania; the University of California, San Francisco; Imperial College London; and at the Ohio Collaborative, the organization's other umbrella PRC encompassing Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Case Western University, and Vanderbilt University.

The centers work independently and collaboratively to study inflammatory, infectious, hormonal, and genetic mechanisms of preterm birth. Using cutting-edge technologies to study large scale molecular data and electronic medical records, they extend findings into multisite studies to validate and test novel biomarkers and therapeutics.  

The PRCs are behind some of the field's most exciting developments, from a blood test to predict preeclampsia risk, to a device that can identify preterm birth risk based on inflammatory vaginal bacteria, to the first trial of a biotherapeutic to reduce preterm birth risk.

About March of Dimes

March of Dimes leads the fight for the health of all moms and babies. We support research, education, and advocacy and provide programs and services so that every family can get the best possible start. Since 1938, we've built a successful legacy to support every pregnant person and every family. Visit marchofdimes.org or nacersano.org for more information.

About UT Southwestern Medical Center    

UT Southwestern, one of the nation's premier academic medical centers, integrates pioneering biomedical research with exceptional clinical care and education. The institution's faculty members have received six Nobel Prizes and include 24 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 25 members of the National Academy of Medicine, and 13 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators. The full-time faculty of more than 3,200 is responsible for groundbreaking medical advances and is committed to translating science-driven research quickly to new clinical treatments. UT Southwestern physicians provide care in more than 80 specialties to more than 140,000 hospitalized patients, more than 360,000 emergency room cases, and oversee nearly 5.1 million outpatient visits a year.

ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MEDICAL BRANCH: Texas' first academic health center opened its doors in 1891 and today has four campuses, five health sciences schools, six institutes for advanced study, a research enterprise that includes one of only two national laboratories dedicated to the safe study of infectious threats to human health, a Level 1 Trauma Center and a health system offering a full range of primary and specialized medical services throughout the Texas Gulf Coast region. UTMB is an institution in the University of Texas System and a member of the Texas Medical Center.

SOURCE March of Dimes Inc.