Dr Timothy JM Moss

Senior Research Fellow, The Ritchie Centre

Dr Tim Moss is a physiologist specialising in perinatal development and preterm birth. Dr Moss is part of The Ritchie Centre’s Fetal, Neonatal and Child Health group.

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.

By understanding how the unborn baby develops and matures before birth we can devise treatments to speed up these processes for preterm babies. 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 potential 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.

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. The goal of Dr Moss’s studies is to provide a basis for interventions aimed at providing protection from the damaging effects of inflammation before birth.

Dr Moss has published over 80 research papers, reviews and book chapters, which have been cited more than 1350 times.

Dr Moss has been awarded more than $12 million in competitive grant funding. He is a CI on an NHMRC Program grant (2011-15) and Project grant (2010-12).

Dr Moss has a BSc (Hons) and a PhD from Monash University.