Donor Human Milk in the 21st Century: Policy, Practice, Innovation, Equity, and Impact

Tuan Thanh Nguyen, MD, PhD, Alive & Thrive, Global Nutrition FHI 360, Vietnam  

Dr. Tuan Nguyen is a dedicated medical epidemiologist with over 25 years of experience in international health, making a positive impact on global communities. He has provided strategic technical leadership in research, monitoring, learning, and evaluation activities in the East Asia Pacific region and beyond. His research focuses on maternal and child health, human milk banking, communicable and non-communicable diseases, health disparities, nutrition policies, health system strengthening, food systems, climate change, and gender.  With advanced training from renowned institutions, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Nguyen has provided technical support and conducted studies in 35 countries. He has co-authored almost 90 peer-reviewed publications and a number of guidelines and reports. He supported the development of the Mothers’ Milk Tool, Green Feeding Tool, and Human Milk Bank Monitoring System. Dr. Nguyen is an Associate Editor of the International Breastfeeding Journal, a Guest Editor of Advancing Breastfeeding Promotion, Protection, and Support for Better Health, Economics, and Planet, and a reviewer for about 30 journals. He is an Adjunct Faculty member at VinUniversity, Vietnam, and a Guest Lecturer at the University of Southern California, USA. 

Kelly Pereira Coca, RNM, PhD, IBCLC, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Brazil

Dr. Kelly Pereira Coca is a professor and researcher at the Escola Paulista de Enfermagem, Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP), with over 20 years of experience in the fields of breastfeeding and human milk banking. She has been an International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) since 2008 and currently serves as the IBCLC coordinator in Brazil.  She holds a nursing degree and a postgraduate specialization in obstetric nursing from UNIFESP, where she also earned her master’s and doctoral degrees. Dr. Coca completed postdoctoral research at La Trobe University in Australia and at the Center for Lasers and Applications, Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares, University of São Paulo, Brazil. She has also served as a visiting professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Currently, Dr. Coca coordinates the Ana Abrão Breastfeeding Center and Human Milk Bank at UNIFESP and serves as a tutor for the Brazilian Ministry of Health’s "Mãe Trabalhadora que Amamenta" Program. Her career is marked by significant contributions to public health policies supporting breastfeeding, and innovative practices in maternal and newborn care. Dr. Coca has published extensively, including collaborative work with international experts, and is recognized as a leading voice in the advancement of breastfeeding promotion and support in Brazil and beyond.

Tanya Cassidy, PhD, Kathleen Lonsdale Human Health Research Institute, Maynooth University, Ireland

Dr Tanya M. Cassidy (PhD) is medical cultural social psychologist researcher and lecturer who has held professorships at a number of universities on either side of the Atlantic, including in Ireland, the UK and Canada. She has over three decades of experience working to build bridges between disciplines—integrating theory and method—on topics related to maternal and infant health and feeding, including the use of donor human milk. Having received a number of prestigious awards and fellowships—including the Dublin City University (DCU) President’s Award for Research Impact, a Fulbright-HRB (Irish Health Research Board) Health Impact Scholar Award, an EU Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska Curie Award (MSCA) Fellowship, and a senior HRB Cochrane Fellowship—Dr. Cassidy has extensive experience editing journals and is the author or co-author of many articles and books. She is the lead author of the book Banking on Milk: An Ethnography of Donor Human Milk Relations (published with Routledge, June 2019), which—thanks to a grant from the DCU School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Health (where she lectured until 2022)—is now available via open access (see link). Dr. Cassidy was part of an interdisciplinary international team that conducted two important systematic reviews for the World Health Organization (WHO) in connection with their work on donor human milk. Currently, Dr. Cassidy is leading an Irish group connected with the EU4Health IMAGINE HMB project, which is linked to establishing European donor human milk guidelines. 

Laura Klein, PhD, Australian Red Cross Lifeblood, Australia

Dr Laura Klein is the National Milk Research Leader at Australian Red Cross Lifeblood. Lifeblood is the largest provider of donor human milk in Australia, supplying more than 40 hospitals across the country. Over the past five years, she has helped establish a multidisciplinary milk research team at Lifeblood that collaborates with researchers and clinicians across Australia to understand every aspect of human milk donation. She is dedicated to generating evidence to improve the products and services that milk banks provide to donors and the families who receive donor milk.  She holds degrees in biology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Harvard University. She was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago before moving to Australia. Currently, Dr Klein is part of an NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence on Human Milk Nutrition for Preterm Infants. She is also working with interdisciplinary teams on two clinical trials to investigate the use of donor milk for vulnerable infants beyond the very preterm cohort when their mother’s own milk is not available.