Research Horizons from Cincinnati Children's Research Foundation

Research Horizons from Cincinnati Children's Research Foundation - Spring 2017

Explore highlights of the exciting research happening at Cincinnati Children's Research Foundation with Research Horizons. Each issue features recent studies published by Cincinnati Children's investigators. By combining cutting-edge research and education with the best in pediatric care, we are striving to improve the lives of children and families everywhere.

In this issue, you will find the following feature stories that highlight some of our many world-class researchers:

Infectious Diseases

Systems Vaccinology

Infectious Diseases and Immunobiology forge a partnership to apply systems biology concepts to vaccine development. Their goal: to further integrate expertise in genomics, transcriptomics, lipidomics, metabolomics and other emerging fields into the established vaccine world of virologists, immunologists and infectious disease specialists.

New Vaccine Surveillance Network

CDC-funded New Vaccine Surveillance Network and the PREVAIL cohort study track vaccine effectiveness and babies’ health.

Immunity and Pregnancy

New research reveals that influenza vaccine follows a consistent direction, but an uneven path, as it affects the immune systems of pregnant women and their developing babies. For flu shots during pregnancy, earlier appears to be better.

Immunobiology

Attacking Infection by the Numbers

Emily Miraldi, PhD, is a computational and systems biologist who focuses on immuno-engineering: altering the behavior of specific immune cell populations during disease without compromising the body’s normal immune function.

B Cell Factories

A team of experimental and computational biologists at Cincinnati Children’s has managed to probe far deeper into infection-fighting B cell factories.

Blood Cell Study Stirs Debate

Nature paper shows blood cells in mice appear to reach their final states following competitions between opposing gene regulatory networks. The study infers that within these genetic tugs of war that determine the fates of blood cells there are still other as yet undiscovered multi-lineage intermediates.

The Microbiome

Battling the Dark Side of Antibiotics for Newborns

Doctors have long understood that antibiotics that protect infants from infection also can disrupt the normal growth of their gut bacteria. However, a new study reveals that the consequences of routine antibiotic use may be deeper and longer lasting than expected.

Fecal Metagenomics and Blood

Extensive hospital infection control programs have a problem: current blood tests generally do a poor job of detecting multidrug-resistant bacteria. But Cincinnati Children’s is developing—and is close to clinically testing—a new early detection system, according to David Haslam, MD, Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program here.

Welcome to the Microbiome World

Although research into immune system response is not new, the science of analyzing the good or “commensal” microbes in mice devoid of microbes is a relatively new arena that has taken off over the last decade. Alenghat’s team was the first to bring this innovative approach to Cincinnati Children’s.