Professor Laura Bennet
Chair of Perinatal Physiology
Dept Physiology
The University of Auckland
Professor Laura Bennet is co-director of the Fetal Physiology and Neuroscience Group in the
department of Physiology, at the University of Auckland. She is a fetal systems physiologist
with a specialist interest in the preterm fetal cardiovascular and neurophysiological
adaptations to asphyxia and infection, and the development of neuroprotection strategies. Her
current work encompasses many strands. She is evaluating stem-cells as a treatment for
preterm brain injury and for promoting neural plasticity after injury. She has pre-clinical and
clinical trials underway on assessment of EEG waveforms as a biomarker for predicting
injury processes in the preterm infant. She also is developing new research on determining
how patterns of preterm brain injury may be modified after fetal exposure to combined insults
and standard clinical treatments, such as antenatal glucocorticoids and magnesium sulphate,
and how modification of autonomic function may alter beneficially and detrimentally patterns
of injury.