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Dr Timothy JM Moss

NHMRC RD Wright Senior Research Fellow

BSc (Hons) Monash 1994

PhD Monash 1999

 
Email: tim.moss@med.monash.edu.au
Phone: +61 3 9905 5233
Fax: +61 3 9905 2547
Mail: Department of Physiology
Building 13f
Monash University
Victoria 3800
Australia

Research Interests and Expertise

Prenatal Development and Preterm Birth

More than 20,000 Australian babies are born preterm (before 37 completed weeks of gestation) each year. Many of these babies face life-threatening illnesses, which can result in long term disability.

Antenatal corticosteroids
By understanding how the unborn baby develops and matures before birth we can devise treatments to speed up these processes: this is the basis of antenatal corticosteroid therapy, which is used routinely for women at risk of preterm birth. Antenatal corticosteroid therapy reduces the risk of lung disease, brain injury and gastrointestinal disease; but it only works about half the time and there are possible adverse life-long effects. Dr Moss studies the long-term effects of antenatal corticosteroid therapy and is also investigating ways in which development might be accelerated by other maturational pathways.

Intrauterine inflammation
Infection or inflammation within the womb is common in pregnancies that end in preterm birth, and is associated with many of the diseases faced by preterm infants. Dr Moss studies the effects on the developing brain, lungs and immune system of inflammation and infection in the womb. These studies will form the basis for interventions aimed at providing protection from the damaging effects of inflammation before birth.

Publications

Dr Moss has published over 80 research papers, reviews and book chapters, which have been cited more than 1000 times.

Link to PubMed (US National Library of Medicine) for research publications and reviews by Dr Moss


Book chapters
  1. Newnham, J.P., T.J.M. Moss, I. Nitsos, D.M. Sloboda & J.R.G. Challis. Should we be using repeated doses of antenatal corticosteroids? The fetus as a patient: The evolving challenge (ed F. Chervenak, A. Kurjak, Z. Papp) Parthenon, 2002.
  2. Sloboda, D.M., T.J.M. Moss, J.P. Newnham & J.R.G. Challis. Fetal HPA activation, preterm birth and postnatal programming. Birth, Distress and Disease (ed. M.L. Power & J. Shulkin) Cambridge University Press, 2005.
  3. Moss, T.J.M. & D.M. Sloboda. Programming effects of excess glucocorticoid exposure in late gestation. Early Life Origins of Health and Disease (ed. E.M. Wintour & J. Owens) Landes Bioscience, 2006.
  4. Sloboda, D.M., J.P. Newnham, T.J.M. Moss & J.R.G. Challis. The fetal hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis: relevance to developmental origins of adult disease. Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (ed. P.D. Gluckman & M.A. Hanson) Cambridge University Press, 2006.
  5. Moss, T.J.M. & A.H. Jobe. Amniotic fluid inflammation and fetal lung development. Inflammation in Pregnancy (ed. D.M. Peebles & L. Myatt) Informa Healthcare, 2006.
  6. Newnham, J.P. & T.J.M. Moss. Antenatal corticosteroids. Preterm Birth: Mechanisms, Mediators, Prediction, Prevention and Interventions (ed. F. Petraglia, S.G. Gabbe, J.F. Strauss & G. Weiss) Informa Healthcare, 2007.
  7. Jobe, A.H., S.G. Kallapur & T.J.M. Moss. Inflammation/Infection: Effects on the fetal/newborn lung. In: Bancalari, E. The newborn lung: Neonatal questions and controversies. (Neonatology: Questions and controversies series) Elsevier, 2008.
  8. Moss, T.J.M., D.N. Baldwin, B.J. Allison & J.P. Pillow. Anatomy and physics of respiration. In: Splinter, R. Handbook of Biomedical Physics. Taylor & Francis, In press.

Research Grants

Dr Moss has been awarded more than 20 research grants, totalling over $4 milion.

Current Grants
2004-2009 NHMRC RD Wright Biomedical Career Development Award
  TJM Moss
  National Health and Medical Research Council
  $417,500 total
(suspended October 2006-October 2007)
2004-2009 Research Network in Genes and Environment in Development (NGED)
R Richards et al.
Australian Resaerch Council, National Health and Medical Ressaerch Council
$1,500,000 total
2007-2009 Intrauterine ureaplasma infection during pregnancy: fetal effects and characteristics of ureaplasma pathogenicity 
TJM Moss, CL Knox, I Nitsos, AH Jobe, JP Newnham
National Health and Medical Research Council
$507,750
2009 Resuscitation and ventilatory support of preterm neonates
  TJM Moss, SB Hooper
'Linkassist grant', Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences
$2,000