CAMBRIDGE LACTATION LAB

Using innovative models to study human milk production

Understanding Human Lactation

The early days of life sets the scene for an individual's long-term health. Human milk provides the best source of nutritional, developmental and immune support for the infant; thus, breastfeeding is recommended by the World Health Organisation for the first 12 months of an infant's life. Despite the clear importance of human lactation, it remains a greatly understudied area. Supported by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, Dr Alecia-Jane Twigger leads the Cambridge Lactation Lab to develop innovative lab-grown and computational models of human lactation to study milk production.

Working with cutting-edge scientific tools, our mission is to understand how human lactation works. We aim to identify strategies to improve breastfeeding, particularly in women with low supply, to improve the long-term health outcomes of women and children.

We collect data on human milk samples in the CAMB MOM study to enhance our laboratory-based models of human lactation. Furthermore, using computational models, we will provide greater insights into the influence of genetics, ancestry, and metabolic predispositions on milk synthesis and secretion.

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