Speakers

Anna David is a Professor and Consultant in Obstetrics and Maternal Fetal Medicine at UCL Hospital in London and has been Director of the UCL Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Institute for Women’s Health since 2018.  

Clinically Anna specializes in fetal medicine and fetal therapy for congenital disease, fetal growth restriction and prevention of preterm birth. In 2019 she co-lead the implementation of fetal surgery for spina bifida in the UK, a clinical service which is now specialist commissioned by NHS England.   

As a clinician scientist her research is developing prenatal therapies for obstetric conditions and congenital disease in the fetus, using genetic and regenerative medicine. She has been working on a novel maternal gene therapy approach to improve fetal growth before birth in the EVERREST study. She was part of the BOOSTB4 consortium that performed the first clinical trial of in utero stem cell transplantation for osteogenesis imperfecta. She leads the team that has developed the first standardized Maternal and Fetal Adverse Event Terminology: MFAET for use in clinical trials of pregnancy interventions. This terminology is transforming the conduct of trials to test new maternal and fetal therapies, making them much safer for pregnant women and their babies.