A/Professor Jane Halliday

contact details

  A/Professor Jane Halliday
  Public Health Genetics
  Murdoch Childrens Research Institute

  T +61 3 83416260
  E janehalliday.h@mcri.edu.au

biography

Jane Halliday is a Principal Research Fellow of the MCRI and Associate Professor of the Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne. From 2007-2009, she was Consultant Epidemiologist to the Victorian Birth Defects Register (VBDR), Department of Human Services and had a longstanding managerial role there as well. Jane has been Chief Investigator A on 34 of 51 grants received, amounting to $8,810,000 since 1997. She has 135 peer-review publications, has authored 22 technical reports on prenatal diagnosis, births and birth defects and produced eight commissioned reports. She is actively involved in 13 scientific advisory committees (4 national) including an appointment to the NHMRC Human Genetics Advisory Committee (2007-9 and 2009-12). She was appointed to the Australian Health Ethics Committee from 1998-2000 as the nominated representative of the Public Health Association of Australia, is on the Board of the Spina Bifida Foundation of Victoria and was President of Australasian Epidemiological Association (2004-8).

achievements

2002-2006 NHMRC Population Health Career Development Award
2007 Fellowship of the Public Health Association of Australia (FPHAA)
2008 Community Acknowledgement Award from the Spina Bifida Foundation Victoria
2008 Certificate of Appreciation, in recognition of invaluable contribution to Health Pregnancies, Healthy Babies for Koori Communities Project
2007-2011 NHMRC Senior Research Fellowship
2010 Invited Orator for the Human Genetics Society of Australasia

research focus & interest

Jane's main research interests are in human genetics and epidemiology. She undertakes research in: 1) evaluation of current and future prenatal genetic testing technologies for birth defects; 2) use and communication of genetic information in families; 3) integration of genetics, epigenetics and other risk factors associated with prenatal exposures (e.g. assisted reproductive technologies (ART), alcohol) and their impact on health and wellbeing of infants, children and young adults. In regards to prenatal screening, she led a cluster randomized controlled trial, following development of a decision aid (DA) for GPs to give to women at their first antenatal visit. It increased informed decision-making by pregnant women and is now being distributed through the Royal Australian New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Over 35,000 copies have been sold to date and a link to the DA through the MCRI website is promoted in a popular book, "Up the Duff", by Kaz Cooke. Her experience with randomised controlled trials (RCT) is further demonstrated by her role on another successfully completed RCT, related to community awareness and use of folate for prevention of neural tube defects. In addition, she is currently CIA on a RCT examining the role of a complex genetic counselling intervention in communicating genetic information within families. Record linkage has been another method used in her research to determine the performance characteristics of the Victorian maternal serum screening and newborn screening programs, as well as perinatal outcomes after ART, including birth defects. She is currently leading two NHMRC-funded cohort studies, one a retrospective cohort of young adults conceived by IVF over 18 years ago to study their health and wellbeing and the other, a prospective cohort of pregnant women recruited in first trimester to study the effects of low and moderate doses of alcohol on the fetus.

publications

Colleen Chew, JL Halliday*, MM Riley, DJ Penny. Population-based study of Antenatal Detection of Congenital Heart Disease by Ultrasound, Ultrasound Obstet Gynecol, 29(6):617-424 (2007)(*corresponding author)
Nagle C, Gunn J, Bell R, Lewis S, Meiser B, Metcalfe S, Ukoumunne O and Halliday J. Use of a decision aid for prenatal testing of fetal abnormalities to improve women's informed decision making: a cluster randomised controlled trial, Brit J Obstet Gynaecol,115:339-347 (2008)
Collins R, Muggli E, Riley M, Palma S, Halliday J. Is Down Syndrome a Disappearing Birth Defect? The Journal of Pediatrics, 152(1): 20-4 (2008 )
Amor D and Halliday J, A Review of known imprinting syndromes and their association with assisted reproduction technologies, Human Reproduction 23(12): 2826-34 (2008)
Gibson K, Halliday J, Kirby D, Yaplito-Lee J, Thornburn D, Boneh A. Mitochondrial Oxidative Phosphorylation Disorders Presenting in Neonates: Clinical Manifestations and Enzymatic and Molecular Diagnoses, Pediatrics 122(5);1003-8, (2008)
Halliday J, Collins V, Riley M, Youssef D, Muggli E. Has prenatal screening influenced the prevalence of co-morbidities associated with Down syndrome and subsequent survival rates?, Pediatrics, 123(1): 256-61 (2009)
D.J.Amor, J.X. Xu, J.L. Halliday, I. Francis, D.L. Healy, S. Breheny, HWG. Baker, A.M. Jaques. Pregnancies conceived using ART have low levels of pregnancy associated protein-A leading to a high rate of false positive results in first trimester screening for Down syndrome, Human Reproduction, 24(6): 1330-1338 (2009)
Susan M Reid, Alice M. Jaques, Cynthia Susanto, Susan Breheny, Dinah S. Reddihough, Jane Halliday. Cerebral palsy and assisted reproductive technologies: a case control study. Dev Med Child Neurol; 52 (7): e161-6 (2010)
Halliday JL, Ukoumunne OC, Baker HW, Breheny S, Jaques AM, Garrett C, et al. Increased risk of blastogenesis birth defects, arising in the first 4 weeks of pregnancy, after assisted reproductive technologies. Hum Reprod 25(1):59-65.(Jan 2010)   REPRINTED for Russian excerpted edition of Human Reproduction (May 2010)
Healy DL, Breheny S, Halliday J, Jaques A, Rushford D, Garrett C, et al. Prevalence and risk factors for obstetric haemorrhage in 6730 singleton births after assisted reproductive technology in Victoria Australia. Hum Reprod 2010;25(1):265-74. (2010)
Dekker GA, Chan A, Luke CG, Priest K, Riley M, Halliday J, King JF, Gee V, O'Neill M, Snell M, Cull V, Cornes S.  Risk of uterine rupture in Australian women attempting vaginal birth after one prior caesarean section: a retrospective population-based cohort study. BJOG 117(11):1358-1365 (2010)
Jaques AM, Amor DJ, Baker HW, Healy DL, Ukoumunne OC, Breheny S, et al. Adverse obstetric and perinatal outcomes in subfertile women conceiving without assisted reproductive technologies. Fertil Steril. 94 (7) 2674-9 (2010)
Wilson CL, Fisher JR, Hammarberg K, Amor DJ, Halliday JL. Looking downstream: a review of the literature on physical and psychosocial health outcomes in adolescents and young adults who were conceived by ART. Hum Reprod;26(5):1209-19 (2011)