Maria von Chamier

PhD Student

Department of Infectious Diseases & Immunology

Major Advisor: Mary Brown, PhD

Office Location: PO Box 110880

mariavc@ufl.edu

(352) 294-4090

Education

• DVM
• DACLAM

Honors & Awards

• UF Alumni Fellow
• Florida Bright Futures Academic Scholarship Award
• Phi Beta Kappa, FSU

Research Interests

With the increasing popularity of electronic cigarettes among young people of reproductive age, nicotine exposure during pregnancy continues to be a pressing public health issue. Nicotine may disturb the immune balance at the maternal-fetal interface, altering the host immune response to infection. My research uses a rat model of intrauterine Mycoplasma sp. infection to investigate how nicotine-induced alterations in the host response to infection at this site can impact fetal health and pregnancy outcomes. We have found that nicotine has a dose-dependent impact on maternal and fetal microbial colonization. We continue to investigate the mechanisms underlying these impacts.

Publications

• von Chamier M, Reyes L, Hayward LF, Brown MB. Impact of gestational nicotine exposure on intrauterine and fetal infection in a rodent model. Biol Reprod. 2017 May 1;96(5):1071-1084. PubMed PMID: 28419180; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5803783.
• Brown MB, von Chamier M, Allam AB, Reyes L. M1/M2 macrophage polarity in normal and complicated pregnancy. Front Immunol. 2014;5:606. PubMed PMID: 25505471; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4241843.
• Allam AB, von Chamier M, Brown MB, Reyes L. Immune profiling of BALB/C and C57BL/6 mice reveals a correlation between Ureaplasma parvum-Induced fetal inflammatory response syndrome-like pathology and increased placental expression of TLR2 and CD14. Am J Reprod Immunol. 2014 Mar;71(3):241-51. PubMed PMID: 24372928; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3927638.
• von Chamier M, Allam A, Brown MB, Reinhard MK, Reyes L. Host genetic background impacts disease outcome during intrauterine infection with Ureaplasma parvum. PLoS One. 2012;7(8):e44047. PubMed PMID: 22952869; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3430619.

About Me

I am passionate about maternal, fetal, and postnatal health and am dedicated to a career in research. I am also passionate about elevating the role of veterinarians in biomedical research both in improving animal welfare but also in using our expertise in comparative medicine to advance human, animal, and environmental health.