The Santillan lab is particularly interested in the relationship between maternal health during pregnancy and the short and long-term health effects to the mother and child. Specifically, our current work focuses on the early mechanisms involved in the development of preeclampsia, including immunological and vascular function changes during pregnancy. A central focus in the lab is investigating the predictive, preventative, therapeutic and curative potential of the arginine vasopressin pathway in preeclampsia. Leveraging the group's novel discovery of a very early biomarker for preeclampsia and a novel mouse model for preeclampsia, our lab works to investigate the mechanistic underpinnings of the predictive and therapeutic potential of vasopressin in the management of preeclampsia in a translational manner. As a practicing academic high-risk obstetrician, Dr. Santillan is very qualified in caring for women with high risk pregnancies, in understanding their clinical management, and in conducting clinical/translational research in perinatal biology. He has been successful in conducting studies in both murine and human pregnancies. As the clinical research director and co-founder of the Maternal Fetal Tissue Bank, Dr. Santillan has significant experience in clinical data acquisition, management, and analysis as well as molecular biology techniques needed for translational studies. Furthermore, as the Principal Investigator of the Population project of the University of Iowa American Heart Association Strategically Focused Research Network in Hypertension, Dr. Santillan has developed the PREDICTV network of prenatal providers around the state of Iowa to collect samples and clinical information from a diverse cohort of pregnant women.