Office of Research: Faculty

Dr. Rutherford is the Director of the Comparative Primate Biology Laboratory and Assistant Professor of Histology within the Department of Oral Biology in the College of Dentistry. She is interested in the primate placenta as a signaling interface between mother and fetus. Dr. Rutherford works with both humans and non-human primates to address questions regarding the effect of maternal nutritional history on placental morphology, metabolic function, and gene expression. She is also pursuing research into the role of the intrauterine environment generally (and the placenta specifically) in programming life history parameters within individuals, as well as evolutionary change within and across taxa. Dr. Rutherford and colleagues at Northwestern University, Wayne State University, and San Carlos University in Cebu, Philippines are exploring epigenetic regulation of placental systems of amino acid transport and morphological adaptations in the context of a unique longitudinal, multigenerational study of women and their children in the Philippines. This study seeks to determine whether a mother’s own developmental experience shapes the placental transmission of nutrients to her offspring. Dr. Rutherford is also applying the study of placental plasticity to the question of litter size evolution among the callitrichine primates, the group that includes the marmosets, tamarins, and callimicos.