Research

Some of the current research interests of the program's faculty include:

• Autoregulation of cerebral blood flow during the perinatal period in a sheep model
• Role of vagus nerve traffic in neuroinflammation and lung development in the newborn
• Mechanisms of pulmonary hypertension in a newborn lamb model
• Bronchopulmonary dysplasia in a rodent model
• Necrotizing enterocolitis in a rodent model
• Intrauterine hypoxic ischemic injury in a rodent model
• Effect of pulmonary infection on central control of ventilation
• Fetal origins of adult disease in a chronic hypoxia sheep model
• Vasoactivity of nitric oxide and its metabolites
• Neuroprotective effects of nitric oxide and its metabolites
• Underlying mechanisms of Retinopathy of Prematurity

Clinical Projects:

• Biomarkers associated with the development of BPD
• Cerebral blood flow and oxygenation during surgical procedures
• Correlating ROP with breathing pattern changes
• Effect of ROP screening on biomarkers of pain and stress 
• Oral feeding and patent ductus arteriosus
• aEEG as an index of brainstem development in preterm neonates
• aEEG abnormalities in infants with congenital heart defects
• Effect of feeding on the gastrointestinal microbiome of preterm infants
• Impact of Maternal Factors on the Incidence of Necrotizing Enterocolitis
• Near-Infrared Spectroscopy to Evaluate Feeding Tolerance in Infants with NEC
• A wholeness approach to respiratory outcome prediction using non-linear and machine learning-based methodology
• A machine learning-based wholeness approach to early extubation readiness prediction
• Correlation between nutrition, growth, and neurodevelopmental outcomes
• Developing a prediction tool to assess likelihood of loss to NICU discharge follow-up
• Quantifying placental insufficiency-induced fetal reprogramming using fetal cell-free RNA
• Assessing in utero microbiome distribution in association with placental insufficiency
• A neural network approach to verifying UVC tip position in neonates