The placenta is the sole source of all oxygen and nutrients to each of us before we are born. As such, its healthy development is clearly central to our own healthy development. Abnormal placental growth and injury to the placenta have been causally linked to death before birth, and to many serious problems such as preterm birth (the major cause of death in newborns) and preeclampsia (the leading cause of death of pregnant women world-wide). However, new data, gathered over the last decade in populations of men and women across the globe, suggests that life before birth-- or more precisely, stressors acting during that time period-- may have lifelong effects on health risks from developing certain types of cancers to dying from a heart attack at age 50. The placenta, as the interface between the mother's environment and the baby, is likely central to understanding how these risks are created.

Placental growth is branching and arborized-- very complex and in fact too complex for routine assessment even by expert pathologists. Placental shapes can also be complicated and even disease diagnoses have surprisingly limited reliability. From the complex three-dimensional shape of the delivered placenta, to the assessment in two-dimensions (histology slides) of the microscopic branching structure of the villus tree, to image segmentation for the purpose of item identification, the placenta is an ideal data source for applications of mathematical and image processing tools.

The following 1 hr lectures take place in the Coyote Conference Room, Room 163, Building 410: