Pediatric Research Podcast

By Nature Publishing GroupMedicine

Pediatric Research Podcast episodes

February 18, 2022 Whole-exome sequencing of epilepsy after acute symptomatic neonatal seizures
Twenty-five percent of children who survive acute symptomatic seizures as neonates go on to develop epilepsy. Whilst there are several known risk factors, currently not enough is known about the mechanisms behind the development of epilepsy following neonatal brain injury, and thus it is not yet possible to reliably predict the individual risk of developing this disease in this group of patients.

In this episode, we speak to Adam Numis from UC San Francisco. He and his team used whole exome sequencing with targeted gene analysis to look for genetic risk factors for developing epilepsy following acute neonatal seizures, and to identify potential biological processes behind this epileptogenesis. Read the study here.
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12 min
January 31, 2022 New technique for estimating respiratory rates in preterm infants
Most very preterm infants experience apneas of prematurity. It is a common comorbidity of prematurity, and therefore reliable real-time monitoring of respiratory rates is key in these infants. The conventionalmethod is to use chest impedance measured with electrodes on the surface of the thorax. However, this method is known to be unreliable, as it is prone to motion artifacts. For this reason, indirect measurements such as oxygen desaturation or bradycardia are often necessary to identify apneas. In this episode, we meet this month's featured Early Career Investigator, Dr. Kerstin Jost at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. She describes a recent study of a novel technique using a commercially available nasogastric feeding tube that measures esophageal signals and uses customized software to identify the respiratory rate of non-ventilated preterm infants. Listen in!
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12 min
December 10, 2021 Associations of media use and early childhood development: cross-sectional findings from the LIFE Child study
There is a growing body of evidence showing that excessive early media use is detrimental to children's physical and mental health. As such, the World Health Organization guidelines suggest that screen time for infants should be limited to a maximum of one hour per day. However, with the growing ubiquity of digital media, it is thought that preschoolers are exposed to more than two hours of screen time. With the rapidly changing nature of digital media use, it is not yet clear how this is affecting different aspects of early childhood development. The evidence to date has been increasingly mixed.

In this episode, we speak to medical student Clarissa Schwarzer who is doing her doctoral thesis on early childhood development and media use by children and mothers at the Leipzig Research Center for Civilization Diseases.

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14 min
November 18, 2021 Early Career Investigator Spotlight: Matthew W. Harer
Caffeine administration has been associated with reduced rates of Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) in preterm neonates but the effect of caffeine on renal oxygenation is unknown.

In this episode, we meet this month's highlighted Early Career Investigator, Dr. Matthew Harer from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. He has been investigating the potential use of Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS), a non-invasive means of continuously measuring tissue oxygenation to assess the effects of caffeine on renal oxygenation, in the hope that caffeine might one day be used to prevent and even treat AKI.
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12 min
October 29, 2021 SARS-CoV-2 vaccine testing and trials in the pediatric population: biologic, ethical, research, and implementation challenges
Early on in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the majority of infected children were either asymptomatic or had mild COVID-19 disease, prompting many to demand a higher acceptable risk threshold for pediatric vaccines. More recently, as children begin to make up a larger proportion of the infected population and following evidence of the mental and physical toll exacted by the pandemic on children, a pediatric vaccine is now more pressing. But challenges to widespread vaccine uptake remain. In this episode meet Dr. Chulie Ulloa from the University of California Irvine about a recent commentary she wrote with fellow pediatric providers, physician scientists and advocates for children about these challenges and how they might be overcome.
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11 min
September 13, 2021 Juvenile idiopathic arthritis: lymphocyte activation gene-3 is a central immune receptor in children with oligoarticular subtypes
Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is one of the most common inflammatory joint diseases in children. Previous studies have shown that in the oligoarticular subtype of this disease, T cells play a central role in pathogenesis. T cell inhibitory receptors (IRs) seem to play an important role in the development of tolerance and recognition of self and non-self antigens. Ligands binding to these IRs inhibit T cell function and modulate the course of the immune response. In this episode, we meet this month's highlighted Early Career Investigator Erdal Sag, a paediatric rheumatologist at Ankara Training and Research Hospital in Turkey. He and his team designed an ex vivo disease model to examine the effects of different co-inhibitory receptors on the pathogenesis of oligoarticular JIA.
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10 min
August 31, 2021 Chorioamnionitis induces changes in ovine pulmonary endogenous epithelial stem/progenitor cells in utero
Chorioamnionitis is an intrauterine infection of the placenta and fetal membranes. It is the leading cause of preterm delivery and is a common risk factor for adverse pulmonary outcomes such as bronchopulmonary dysplasia. There is evidence to suggest that the first negative impacts on pulmonary development occur in utero in the presence of chorioamnionitis. In this episode, we meet assistant professors Niki Reynaert and Tim Wolfs from Maastricht University in the Netherlands. Together they studied an ovine model of chorioamnionitis in order to study the effects of chronic and acute inflammation on the developing lungs.
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16 min
July 21, 2021 Marc Beltempo – Early Career Investigator Highlight
Previous studies have shown an association between fluid retention during the early postnatal period and increased BPD. However, these studies were performed nearly two decades ago meaning their results may not apply to the contemporary NICU setting, with its widespread use of surfactants and modern incubators. In this episode we meet this month's featured Early Career Investigator Marc Beltempo from McGill University and the Montreal Children's Hospital in Canada, who has revisited this important question.
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12 min
June 01, 2021 Calcium-sensing receptor and CPAP-induced neonatal airway hyper reactivity in mice
Respiratory support plays a crucial role in the care of preterm infants in the NICU, ensuring that they get enough oxygen during this critical period of development. But it is becoming increasingly clear that former preterm infants who have been exposed to ventilatory support are at an increased risk of developing asthma and other respiratory disorders. In this episode, we speak to Peter Macfarlane, an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Rainbow Babies and Children's hospital. He and his team have developed a mouse model to study the effects of CPAP in combination with supplemental oxygen on lung function.
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11 min
May 21, 2021 The utility of the fronto-temporal horn ratio on cranial ultrasound in premature newborns: a ventriculomegaly marker
Extremely preterm infants are at a high risk for brain injury, and this risk is most severe in children with intraventricular hemorrhage followed by post-hemorrhagic ventricular dilation. Bedside cranial ultrasound allows clinicians to identify the progressive dilation of the lateral ventricles, however, there is currently no consensus on how to quantitatively estimate this dilation and at what point to intervene. In this episode, we meet this month's highlighted Early Career Investigator, Dr. Rawad Obeid, a pediatric neurologist at the Oakland University School of Medicine. He and his team investigated a new parameter for estimating lateral ventricular dilation called the frontal-temporal horn ratio, in an effort to define normative values and to correlate this parameter with white matter injury at term-age equivalent.
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13 min

About Pediatric Research Podcast

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Pediapod is the pediatrics podcast from Pediatric Research, produced in association with Nature Publishing Group. Join us as we explore the etiologies of diseases of children and disorders of…