Lyme Disease in Pregnancy Research

Dr. Sarah Mulkey is a Prenatal-Neonatal Neurologist in the Zickler Family Prenatal Pediatrics Institute at Children’s National Hospital and an Associate Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Washington, DC.

She is the Co-Director of the Congenital Infection Program and the Director of the Fetal Neurology Fellowship at Children’s National Hospital.  

Dr. Mulkey’s research interests include brain injury in the fetus and newborn, congenital infectious encephalopathies including Zika virus, and evaluation of neurodevelopmental outcomes. She has contributed to national guidelines for the care of infants exposed to infection during pregnancy. Her research in this area focuses on neuroimaging and long-term neurodevelopment of infants exposed to congenital infections such as Zika virus, COVID-19, and Lyme disease.

Dr. Roberta DeBiasi is chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and the Co-Director of the Congenital Infection Program at Children’s National Hospital. She was recently named the Robert H. Parrott Professor of Pediatric Research at Children’s National and is a tenured Professor of Pediatrics and Microbiology, Immunology and Tropical Medicine at George Washington University.

In addition to her active involvement in clinical care, Dr. DeBiasi’s research career has been devoted to studying severe and congenital viral infections and emerging infectious diseases such as Ebola, Zika virus, COVID-19, MIS-C, and Lyme disease. She is the lead investigator at Children’s National Hospital for the Clinical Trials Network Coordinating Center for Lyme and other Tick-borne Diseases.

Meagan Williams is a Senior Clinical Research Coordinator at Children’s National Hospital. Her research interests involve supporting the well-being of children and families after adverse exposures, and she is dedicated to incorporating patient-centered, strengths-based, and trauma-sensitive principles into all stages of the research process.

In collaboration with Drs. Mulkey and DeBiasi, she has coordinated studies on child development and assessing the short- and long-term impacts of antenatal infectious exposures both domestically and internationally, including COVID-19, MIS-C, Zika virus, and Lyme disease.

Highlighted Publications

• Mulkey, S. B., Corn, E. C., Williams, M. E., … & Cure, C. (2024). Neurodevelopmental outcomes of normocephalic Colombian children with antenatal Zika virus exposure at school entry. Pathogens, 13(2), 170. https://doi.org/10.3390/pathogens13020170
• Schwartz, D. A., Mulkey, S. B., & Roberts, D. J. (2023). SARS-CoV-2 placentitis, stillbirth, and maternal COVID-19 vaccination: clinical-pathologic correlations. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 228(3), 261-269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajog.2022.10.001
• Mulkey, S. B., Williams, M. E., Jadeed, N., Zhang, A., Israel, S., DeBiasi, R. L. (2022). Neurodevelopment in infants with antenatal or early neonatal exposure to SARS-CoV-2. Early Human Development, 175, 105694. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2022.105694
• Mulkey, S. B., Arroyave-Wessel, M., Peyton, C., … & Cure, C. (2020). Neurodevelopmental abnormalities in children with in utero Zika virus exposure without congenital Zika syndrome. JAMA Pediatrics, 174(3), 269-276. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.5204