Professor Angela Ratsch is the Director of Research at the Wide Bay Hospital and Health Service in Queensland.  Angela is a registered nurse and midwife with a specific interest in how pre- and intra-uterine exposures impact the life-time health outcomes of the offspring. Angela worked clinically for many years in the Northern Territory of Australia where she undertook Doctoral studies through The University of Queensland to examine the impact of chewing wild tobacco (pituri) by remote Indigenous mothers on maternal and perinatal outcomes.  Angela’s interest in tobacco and nicotine in pregnancy now includes cannabis use and exposure and she is interested in how both maternal and paternal use impact the placenta, in addition to gestational diabetes and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. Angela’s most recent study is with regional Queensland families expecting Indigenous babies and includes the collection of pregnancy and birth samples for pharmacogenomic analysis including tobacco, nicotine and cannabis metabolism by Indigenous mothers, and placental RNA sequencing and DNA methylation.