Research

Decoding Women’s Health Across Life’s Most Dynamic Transitions

Fertility, pregnancy, and lactation are among the most dramatic biological transitions in human life—yet many of the systems that govern them remain poorly understood.

The Shenhav Lab uses computational biology and artificial intelligence to uncover the hidden dynamics that shape these transitions and influence the health of women and children.

Pregnancy transforms the vascular, immune, and metabolic systems. Lactation reveals the function of an organ programmed during pregnancy but only fully active after birth. The microbiome changes across both time and environment. We study these systems not as snapshots, but as dynamic trajectories - asking when healthy biology begins to diverge, what drives that divergence, and whether we can detect it early.

‍To answer these questions, we develop mathematical and AI approaches that integrate longitudinal clinical data, multi-omics, the microbiome, and medical imaging. Our goal is not only to predict outcomes, but to uncover interpretable biology - connecting fertility, pregnancy, lactation, and future cardiovascular and metabolic health across the life course.

Tailored Algorithms and Mathematical Models

Fertility

Fertility emerges from complex interactions among the reproductive tract, microbiome, immune system, metabolism, and clinical interventions. We use longitudinal and multi-omic data to study these interactions around conception and assisted reproduction, including IVF, and to identify biological states associated with reproductive outcomes.

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Pregnancy

Pregnancy orchestrates a rare physiological transformation across vascular, immune, and metabolic systems. We develop computational approaches to model healthy pregnancy trajectories and detect early deviations associated with adverse outcomes. One major focus uses the eye as a window into systemic vascular health, combining retinal imaging and AI to identify early signatures of preeclampsia and other hypertensive disorders of pregnancy.

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Lactation

Lactation is the functional expression of a mammary gland that has been programmed throughout pregnancy. We study human milk as a non-invasive window into mammary gland biology and as a dynamic interface connecting maternal nutrition and physiology with the developing infant. By integrating molecular, microbial, and clinical data, we investigate how maternal biology shapes milk composition, infant growth, and early-life development.

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Connecting Biology Across The Life Course

We view fertility, pregnancy, and lactation as connected biological transitions rather than isolated events. Across these stages, shared vascular, immune, metabolic, microbial, and molecular systems are continually reprogrammed.By studying these transitions longitudinally and across biological scales, we aim to understand how one stage shapes the next—and to uncover the common mechanisms that link reproductive biology, maternal physiology, and child development.

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Long-Term Women’s Health

Pregnancy and lactation are not isolated reproductive events; they can also reveal important information about a woman’s future cardiovascular and metabolic health. We study how vascular, metabolic, molecular, and microbial signatures across these transitions relate to later disease trajectories, with the goal of identifying early opportunities for prevention across the life course of women.

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