New research by INFANT PhD candidate, Sonia Lenehan and team has been published in a world-leading paediatric research journal, Acta Paediatrica.

Sonia’s research examined the effect of short-term breastfeeding on long-term IQ.

Breastfeeding has many health benefits for infants, including the prevention of infections. It also has a positive impact on IQ and school attendance.

However, despite the known benefits associated with breastfeeding the rate of exclusive breastfeeding up to 6 months is low globally, and Ireland is no exception.

Using data from the Cork BASELINE Birth Cohort Study, the Kaufmann Brief Intelligence Test (a neurodevelopmental assessment) was administered to all children in the study.

The results demonstrate that predominately breastfeeding, even for a short duration in early infancy, has a positive impact on the cognitive development of a child. While not all mothers can breastfeed for extended periods, all should be encouraged by the findings.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/apa.15014#.XYpx_GDwBaM.twitter

Research published today in the journal Circulation has found that women with high blood pressure in pregnancy, including conditions such as preeclampsia, have an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disorders later in life, including stroke and heart failure.

INFANT Researcher Dr Fergus McCarthy, while working at King’s College London, led a team of researchers that studied electronic UK health records from 1997 to 2016 to recreate a UK population-based cohort of 1.3 million women covering nearly 1.9 million completed pregnancies. They used statistical analysis to determine the associations between hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, such as preeclampsia with 12 cardiovascular disorders.

They found that during the 20-year study period, 18,624 cardiovascular events occurred (such as heart attacks, stroke, heart failure), of which 65% occurred in women under 40 years of age.

High blood pressure in pregnancy affects up to 10% of pregnancies often causing complications in the woman and requiring early delivery of their baby.

Women who had one or more pregnancies affected by preeclampsia or other types of pregnancy hypertension were more likely to have a stroke, heart attack, heart failure, or similar event.

Women with pregnancy high blood pressure had twice the number of deaths in this follow-up period from cardiovascular disease compared with women without pregnancy high blood pressure. These women also developed chronic hypertension 4.5 times faster than women without pregnancy high blood pressure.

The increased risk that occurred in those women with previous pregnancy high blood pressure was found as early as one year after pregnancy compared to women without pregnancy high blood pressure.

Approximately 10,000 people die each year from cardiovascular disease (CVD) – including coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke and other circulatory diseases. CVD is the most common cause of death in Ireland, accounting for 36% of all deaths. The largest number of these deaths relate to CHD – mainly heart attack – at 5,000. 22% of premature deaths (under age 65) are from CVD.

Dr McCarthy said: “This research further supports the evidence that what occurs in pregnancy has lifelong implications for a mother’s health. By looking at pregnancy outcomes, we may have an excellent opportunity to identify women at high risk of cardiovascular disease and offer them early interventions after pregnancy to try and reduce this risk. It is critical now that we focus our research on potential interventions to improve the long-term health of mothers”

The next steps in this research are to determine what interventions, such as diet modifications, salt reduction, exercise or medications that may protect the heart, may work in the women after pregnancy to try and reduce this risk and improve long term health.

New research by our Sphere Programme PhD candidate, Gillian Maher and team, has been published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry today.

The work is exploring the association between preeclampsia and preeclampsia coupled with small gestational age (SGA), and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

While there is conflicting evidence regarding a preeclampsia‐ASD relationship, pooled estimates from epidemiological research suggest preeclampsia is associated with a 50% increase in odds of ASD. Therefore, the objective of this study was to examine the association between preeclampsia and ASD, while addressing the key limitations in the literature.

Using data from the Swedish Medical Birth Register, the sample cohort consisted of 2,842,230 children, with 54,071 cases of ASD. Making this study the largest epidemiological study to investigate the association between preeclampsia and ASD, with data on over 2.8 million births.

The apparent preeclampsia/SGA‐ASD relationship suggests that placental pathology may be a common factor increasing the likelihood of ASD. Further research is needed to investigate the role that maternal inflammation may play, as well as the potential impact of pharmacological treatments used during pregnancy on likelihood of ASD.

FULL PAPER HERE: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jcpp.13127

Last Friday, INFANT had the pleasure of hosting Cork’s first ever ‘Standing up for Science’ workshop.

Standing up for Science is a programme created by the team at Sense about Science, a charity empowering the public to critically analyse evidence supporting scientific claims and discoveries.

Over 45 Early Career Researchers from across UCC heard from various experts on how to effectively stand up for science and communicate their work to journalists, policy makers, and the general public.

The day began with Fiona Malone, a postdoctoral researcher from GMIT and UCC researchers Prof Alan Kelly and Dr Emmanuelle Schon-Quinlivan sharing their experiences of engaging with the media and the public.

Next up, Sean Sherlock TD, Prof Brian O Gallachoir, MaREI Centre Director and Dulce Boavida, Chief Scientific Advisor at the European Commission provided their insight and explained how exactly evidence is used in policy and how best to contact your local government representative to get your voice heard.

After lunch, The Echo reported  Darragh Bermingham and 96FM newsreader Pearse McCarthy gave an entertaining “insider perspective” on how journalists report science in an era of fake news.

The final session of the day involved an honest group discussion on how researchers can take responsibility for the public discussion of science and evidence from the beginning of their careers. The Sense about Science team encouraged the researchers to stand up for science and engage the public in real and meaningful ways.

Well done and thank you to all who participated!

Last November, Our PhD researcher, Sonia Lenehan, was voted the winner of Neon Zone’s I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here! Sonia won €500 to be used for a public engagement project of her choice. I’m a Scientist is an online STEM engagement event where students chatted and interacted with scientists through online chats and forums. The students then voted for their favourite scientist.

Keep reading for an update on what Sonia has been up to!

Pictured: Sonia and her workshop participants.

I have always loved science and am a firm believer that everyone should do science for a few years so that they have a basic understanding of how their body works and how the world around them works.

As I grew older, I realised that some people were not being given this chance simply because they had a disability. From personal experience, I know that children with sight loss were told that they were not able to do science because of their disability. Unfortunately, children with disabilities are often excluded from subjects in school because of their disability rather than their ability. I have always wanted to do something about this because I believe with a little imagination on our parts – and some funding – we can develop a school system that is inclusive of everyone and is a better learning environment for every child.

I loved competing in I’m A Scientist and was delighted to win the prize money allowing me the chance to create something I am very passionate about. I really want to change the way science is taught in schools so that every child, no matter their disability or ability, can access science. I believe that science is a subject everyone can do once it is taught in an accessible way.

Luckily the National Council for the Blind Ireland (NCBI) agreed with me and they have been incredibly supportive from day one. Once I knew that I had won and that the prize money was on the way, I began contacting colleges and businesses to tell them about my story and to ask them if they had any old anatomy models that they would like to donate. I knew the €500 would not get me too far as models are expensive but people were incredibly generous. Trinity College Dublin donated various skeletons, bones, knee and shoulder joints. HS Publications in Cork donated models of the heart, torso and the knee and the Muiriosa Foundation donated CPR dummies.

Pictured: Materials for Sonia’s workshop.

Once I secured the skeletons and models, I contacted Caroline Lane from NCBI and we chatted about our vision for this program. We both wanted to empower children and young adults with sight loss to make decisions about their own bodies. My background is in neuroscience, so as a result, the programme became very biology based.  With the prize money, I bought talking thermometers and talking blood pressure monitors as this equipment would make the sessions very relatable to real world situations. Then I spoke to the Public Engagement Officer at INFANT and I borrowed a number of resources to see if they would work for children with sight loss.

Next Caroline and I agreed that we should get a group of children and young adults with sight loss together and ask them their opinions. The idea was to try to provide a tactile workshop where a small group of students could learn a little about their bones, their joints and their brains, how scientists are trying to listen to your brain waves and a short introduction to coding.

On the 31^st of July I travelled to Maynooth University to give my session. There were eleven students in the group ranging in age between 11 and 19. This was a tester session and it went really well! The group were enthusiastic and interactive; they also asked amazing questions and gave great feedback.

I really enjoyed myself and can’t wait to expand this project. Hopefully in the future, alongside the NCBI, we can run science camps every year and have information days were teachers can come in and get ideas on how to make their classrooms and lessons inclusive to all children.

I plan to use the rest of the money to travel to meetings on accessibility and education so that I can understand what else is required and for anything else the NCBI focus group think is needed.

I would like to thank I’m A Scientist for providing me with this opportunity. I would also like to thank all the children who asked me questions and voted for me! To everyone who donated models to the project, thank you so much – you have allowed the prize money to stretch father than I ever thought it could. Thank you to my friend who gave up her time to help me run the session! And finally, to the NCBI and the children and young adults from the focus group, thank you for listening to my idea and for sitting through the first session. I can’t wait to do it again!

Christoph Schwarz has recently joined INFANT as a visiting clinical research fellow.

Get to know him a bit better!

Background

I’m a Paediatrician and Neonatologist from Tuebingen in Germany where  I did my training at the University of Tuebingen in Germany – in a very old nice university city like UCC and Cork, actually. I was an attending neonatologist at a large paediatric department there for the past year. My job there had quite a clinical focus with some research, but I felt that research should have a bigger role in my life.

I love neonatology as it incorporates the senses a lot in medicine such as feeling, hearing, seeing, touching. The baby is born with minimal medical history with decisions frequently made based on clinical examinations and experience.

I hope to return to clinical work again in the near future once I have gained further experience in research  and research techniques.

The road to INFANT

I decided that I wanted to focus on research for the next few years. With two small children now, myself and my wife decided that the time was right to gain experience in another country.  Moving to another country would be an interesting life experience while allowing us to improve our language skills. It will also help me professionally and ultimately become an independent researcher.

When I was researching, reading papers, attending conferences the INFANT centre kept popping up. I reached out to Gene Dempsey (INFANT PI) in November 2017 to ask him what I had to do to become a member of the INFANT team? Five minutes later he said, “send me your CV”.  Five minutes after that he said “OK, what do we have to do to get you here?”.

In February 2018 I travelled to Cork to visit the INFANT Research Centre. I was instantly impressed with the multidisciplinary skills within the centre and the teaching and team spirit. So, we decided to go for it!

Next, we designed an observational trial and applied for a scholarship from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG). I was awarded the scholarship which will allow me to stay here for 24 months. Additionally, we received support from Osypka Medical (Berlin, Germany) to use a non-invasive monitor called ICON to measure how the heart pumps continuously.

Tell us about your research

I’m going to work on the NOAH Study which is focused on Non-invasive Objective Assessment of Hemodynamics. It is common to focus on blood pressure alone which is measured via a central line or a “balloon” on the arm or the leg but this one measure doesn’t tell you the whole infant ‘story’. Over the years, I always questioned if blood pressure alone was the best way forward and did we really know what we were doing? I needed to get answers to my questions.

Prof Dempsey is doing research on this topic for 10+ years. He and our multidisciplinary team at INFANT are supporting me to compare different types of non-invasive monitoring and we will see if one of them (or a combination of them) will give us more information on how the blood is going through the body; how the heart is pumping, how the heart and lungs are working together to bring oxygen to the cells. I would like to find something that guides us on the developmental outcomes of these preemie babies when they are all grown up. First, of course, we have to see if it is feasible, if this complex data we collect is useful, in real-time. And then down the line, we will see if we can base clinical decisions on what we have learned.

In September, I hope to enrol the first baby. I have got so much support from everyone, with all their knowledge and experience. It has gone beyond work, the team have helped me personally too, from finding a house to live to finding a crèche for my kids! The kindness of the people here is awesome.

INFANT research finds pre-eclampsia increases risk of kidney disease.

Women with pre-eclampsia during pregnancy have a five-fold increased risk of end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) later in life compared to women who don’t develop pre-eclampsia during pregnancy, according to a new study.

Pre-eclampsia is a pregnancy complication that causes high blood pressure and protein in the urine.

The study by INFANT Investigator Dr Ali Khashan and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden and Liverpool University, UK, was published this week in PLOS Medicine. 

“This research demonstrates that again, complicated pregnancies may have long-standing adverse effects on maternal health. Pre-eclampsia increases the risk of end-stage kidney disease in mothers, however, the risk remains small. Future research needs to focus on modifiable risk factors and how we may monitor and screen women after complicated pregnancies to reduce these long term risks and improve long term health,” said Dr Khashan.

As the prevalence of kidney disease has risen over recent years, it has become clear that more women have pre-dialysis kidney disease than men. Reproductive history, including the development of pre-eclampsia during pregnancy, has been hypothesized to play a role. In the new study, researchers analysed data from the Swedish Medical Birth Register.

The data revealed that women who had pre-eclampsia in at least one pregnancy were nearly five times more likely to have ESKD than women who had never had pre-eclampsia. The incidence rate of ESKD per 100,000 person-years was 1.85 among women with no history of pre-eclampsia and 12.35 among women with a history of pre-eclampsia.

Moreover, the association was independent of other factors including maternal age and education, and diagnoses of renal disease or cardiovascular disease before pregnancy.

The new paper “shows that pre-eclampsia is a sex-specific, independent risk factor for the subsequent development of ESKD,” the authors say. “However, it should be noted that the overall ESKD risk remains small. Whether screening or preventative strategies will reduce the risk of ESKD in women with adverse pregnancy outcomes is worthy of further investigation.”

The study was partly funded by INFANT, the Strategic Research Programme in Diabetes at Karolinska Institutet, the Stockholm County Council and the Swedish Kidney Foundation.

One of INFANTs biggest supporters was among those conferred with an honorary doctorate at UCC earlier this month. The conferment of an honorary degree is one of the highest honours bestowed on and received by a person in Ireland. Honorary graduates are selected carefully to recognise outstanding distinction in their chosen field including the arts, business, science, technology, sport and service to society.

UCC alumnus Daragh Horgan, a financier, explorer and philanthropist, was conferred with a degree of Doctor of Laws. Daragh, together with his wife Anne, has a long history of giving to UCC across a range of disciplines all governed by their philosophy of enabling through education and research.

In recognition of the work being conducted by INFANT and the difference it is making to people’s lives, they have recently facilitated the establishment of a Chair in Neonatology and the construction of the new paediatric academic unit at the INFANT Centre in Cork University Hospital.

Daragh’s impactful philanthropic intervention has enabled INFANT to continue to tackle the many challenges and complications of pregnancy, early life, and childhood and is playing a key role in leveraging additional investment.

Philanthropic support such as this is critical to retain excellence in research and teaching and to advance the frontiers of knowledge to improve outcomes for patients.

For further details please contact Ms Eimear Keohane via email eimear.keohane@ucc.ie or by phone +353 21 4205409.

The Secretary General of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Niall Burgess and Chargé d’affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Ireland, Mr Reece Smyth, are pleased to announce 36 Fulbright Irish Awardees for 2019-2020.

Recipients were presented with Awards at a ceremony in Dublin Castle on Friday.

Academics, professionals and students from 13 HEIs and organisations in Ireland will go to 30 leading U.S. institutions to study and collaborate with experts in their fields. This year’s Fulbright recipients are from disciplines spanning technology, science, language, medicine and the arts. The Fulbright Awards celebrate diversity across topics, geography and backgrounds. Increased funding from both the Irish and U.S. Governments has allowed the Fulbright Commission in Ireland to support a wider range and number of exciting study and research awardees than ever before.

INFANT Principal Investigator Professor Jonathan Hourihane was the only Fulbright Awardee from UCC. Jonathan’s primary area of clinical and research interest is in paediatric food allergy and anaphylaxis. He is co-Principal Investigator of the BASELINE, Ireland’s only birth cohort study (www.baselinestudy.net.), a board member of the National Children’s Research Centre and a founding Board member of the Clemens von Pirquet Foundation and of the Irish Food Allergy Network (www.ifan.ie). He is current President of the Irish Association of Allergy and Immunology.

Jonathan will undertake his Fulbright-HRB Health Impact Scholar Award at the University of Colorado, Denver.

Congratulations Jonathan from all the INFANT team!