Julie Owens Professor Contact Information Medical School Room N605, Level 6, North Wing Medical School, Frome Rd, University of Adelaide, Adelaide Phone: +61 08 8303 4088 Fax: +61 08 8303 4099 E-mail: julie.owens@adelaide.edu.au Research Centre for Reproductive Health

Research interests

Our research has two major streams where we seek to increase fundamental knowledge about early growth and development and how it is altered in major disease states, especially fetal growth restriction, then to apply this to the design and testing of interventions:

• What controls fetal growth and functional development, specifically, the roles of the mother, placenta, and the insulin-like growth factors?
• What are the initiating events in utero and in infancy, and the mediating mechanisms involved, whereby the early life environment influences our later metabolic and cardiovascular homeostasis?

Recent publications

Book

Wintour-Coghlan ME and Owens JA (2005) Editors, “Early life origins of health and disease” Landes Biosciences, Texas, USA, ISBN: 0-387-28715-9 (In press, pre-published on web: http://www.landesbioscience.com/)

Research Publications

Morley R, Moore VM, Dwyer T, Owens JA, Umstad MP & Carlin JB (2005) The association between erythropoietin in cord blood of twins and size at birth: does it relate to gestational factors, or factors during labour or delivery Pediatric Research, 57(5): 680 – 684
Lipsett J, Tambling M, Madigan K, Przchodzen P, Cool JC, Runciman SIC, McMillen IC, Robinson JS, Owens JA (2005). The effect of placental restriction on lung development in the fetal sheep in late gestation: a morphometric analysis of pulmonary structure. Pediatric Research, In press

Horton DM, Kind KL, Walker MR, Robinson JS & Owens JA. (2005) Fetal growth restriction and accelerated postnatal growth independently predict insulin resistance in the adult guinea pig American Journal of Physiology In press

De Blasio MJ, Gatford KL, Walker MR, Fielke SL, McMillen IC, Robinson JS & Owens JA (2005) Placental restriction of fetal growth reduces size at birth and increases postnatal growth and adiposity in the young lamb. American Journal of Physiology In press

De Blasio MJ, Gatford KL, Robinson JS & Owens JA. (2005) Placental restriction alters circulating thyroid hormone in the young lamb postnatally. American Journal of Physiology In press

Grant PA, Kind KL, Roberts CT, Sohlstrom A, Owens JA & Owens PC (2005) Pregnancy Increases Hepatic Expression of Insulin-like Growth Factor-I in Well Nourished Guinea Pigs. Growth Hormone and IGF Research, 15: 165-171

Quigley SP, Kleeman DO, Kakar MA, Owens JA, Nattras, GS, Maddocks, S & Walker SK (2005) Myogenesis in sheep is altered by variable maternal feed intake during the peri-conception period. Animal Reproductive Science, 87(3-4): 241-251

Kind KL, Roberts CT, Sohlstrom A, Katsman A, Clifton PM, Robinson JS & Owens JA. (2005) Chronic maternal feed restriction impairs growth but increases adiposity of the fetal guinea pig. American Journal of Physiology, 288(1): R119 - R126

Belobrajdic DP, McIntosh GH & Owens JA (2004) A high whey- protein diet reduces body weight gain and alters insulin sensitivity relative to red meat in the Wistar rat. Journal of Nutrition, 134: 1454 - 1458

Briscoe TA, Rehn AE, Diene S, Duncan JR, Wlodek ME, Owens JA & Rees SM (2004) Cardiovascular and renal pathology in the adolescent guinea pig following chronic placental insufficiency. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 191(3): 847 - 855

Gatford KL, De Blasio MJ, Thavaneswaran P, Robinson JS, McMillen IC & Owens JA (2004) Postnatal ontogeny of glucose homeostasis and insulin action in the sheep. American Journal of Physiology (Endocrinology and Metabolism), 286: E1050 – E1059

Belobrajdic DP, McKintosh GH & Owens JA (2003) Whey proteins protect more than red meat against azoxymethane induced ACF in Wistar rats. Cancer Letters, 198; 43-51

Kind KL, Clifton PM, Grant PA, Owens PC, Sohlstrom A, Roberts CT, Robinson JS & Owens JA (2003) Effect of maternal feed restriction during pregnancy on glucose tolerance in the adult guinea pig. American Journal of Physiology, 284: R140-152.

Gatford KL, Ekert JE, Blackmore K, DeBlasio MJ, Boyce JM, Owens JA, Campbell RG & Owens PC (2003) Variable maternal nutrition and growth hormone treatment in the second quarter of pregnancy in pigs alter semitendinosus muscle in adolescent progeny. British Journal of Nutrition, 90: 283 – 293.

Invited Reviews published as chapters in books

Owens JA, Gatford KL, De Blasio MJ, Horton DM, Kind KL, Robinson JS (2005) Perinatal programming of metabolic homeostasis. In: Perinatal Programming: Early Life Determinants of Adult Health & Disease. Hodgson D, Coe C (Editors) Taylor and Francis Medical Books, UK (in press).

Wintour EM, Owens JA (2005). Introduction. In: Early life programming of adult health and disease, Wintour-Coghlan M & Owens JA (Editors), Landes Biosciences, Texas, USA (in press).