Fundraising for mums and babies

On 11 November, Women’s Fitness Plus Gym hosted a fundraising fashion show. This incredible night, hosted in the Women’s Fitness Plus bespoke studio, was all in aid of the research in the INFANT Centre.

Incredible Generosity

Women’s Fitness Cork presented the INFANT Centre with a huge €2,553 raised by the November fashion show. The donation was accepted by INFANT co-directors Prof. Geraldine Boylan and Prof. Louise Kenny.

We are constantly overwhelmed by the generosity of businesses like Women’s Fitness Plus and the people of Cork. We could not do our research without them.

We would like to sincerely thank everyone who attended the fashion show and who donated so generously. Your donations will have a great impact and will help not only mothers and babies here in the CUMH, but families around the world.

INFANT Awards 2016

The inaugural INFANT Awards 2016, held in the main auditorium Cork Maternity Hospital, showcased the incredible talent, teamwork and commitment to innovation which makes the work of the INFANT centre possible.

Dr. Niamh Shaw: “Walking (Slowly) Towards Space”

Engineer, scientist and performer Dr Niamh Shaw gave an opening talk titled “Walking (Slowly) Towards Space”. She discussed the importance of awakening and encouraging curiosity across the fields of science, technology, art, engineering and mathematics (STEAM).

Describing her personal journey and how she is following her dream of reaching space, Dr. Shaw talked about how innovation takes courage, vision and a step-by-step approach. The perception of career goals and success was also a topic for discussion, with many INFANT staff members feeling that working to make pregnancy safer was their dream job.

The talk concluded with a short Q&A where Dr. Shaw spoke about the role she believes communication can play in promoting research and innovation.

Awards

The inaugural INFANT awards took place after Dr. Niamh Shaw’s talk, with a presentation which highlighted exceptional achievement by INFANT staff members.

The Awardees:

Person of the Year: Amy Aherne

Education and Public Engagement Award: Alison O’Shea

Researcher of the Year: Dr. John O’Toole

Young Researcher of the Year: Katie Togher

Prof. Louise Kenny, co-director of INFANT, said that she was “impossibly proud of these talented people who spend their days and nights delivering innovation for mums and babies.”

HIE and Therapeutic Hypothermia

Research at the INFANT centre is focused on developing new ways to help mothers and babies. One of the treatment options being studied by our researchers is therapeutic hypothermia.

When babies are deprived of oxygen or blood flow around the time of birth, this may result in a condition known as hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE), which can result in severe brain damage and other lifelong diseases. This is where therapeutic hypothermia is useful: research has shown outcome for these children is improved significantly if they are cooled quickly after birth and kept cool for several days.

How Therapeutic Hypothermia Works

Therapeutic hypothermia uses a cooling cap or blanket to preserve a lowered temperature, reducing inflammation and giving the brain recovery time. The treatment usually takes place over the course of three days, after which the baby is warmed up again.

Offering Therapeutic Hypothermia in Mild Cases of HIE

In moderate or severe cases of HIE, this cooling treatment has been shown to significantly reduce the risk of cerebral palsy and longterm disability. At INFANT, the effect of HIE on the brain has been well documented. Prof. Geraldine Boylan and Dr. Deirdre Murray have studied the brainwaves of neonates with HIE, with a follow-up investigation taking place five years later. The evidence they found suggests that even mild HIE contributes to developmental delays and learning difficulties. INFANT research has advocated that studies of therapeutic cooling should also be carried out in mild cases of HIE, to see if we can improve their outcomes.

Further Reading

Below, you can find examples of recent publications concerning hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy and therapeutic hypothermia by INFANT researchers.

Presenter Anne-Marie Tomchak, UK editor of Mashable, returned home to Ireland determined to explore a world where our digital fingerprints are being captured and applied in all areas of modern life.

In INFANT, she met with our directors Prof. Louise Kenny and Prof. Geraldine Boylan to explore how INFANT uses big data to help make pregnancy safer and improve health outcomes for newborn babies, under the strictest data security.

INFANT technology, Prof. Kenny notes, is advancing how we protect women during pregnancy “from being only able to predict risk using very simple clinical data to real precision medicine”, where one blood sample can predict “a woman’s entire pregnancy course.”

Asked how technology and data help us learn about childbirth, Prof. Boylan explains that the brainwave analysis tools being developed by INFANT researchers are vital as they give us “the only window we have into the newborn brain”.

Researchers from the INFANT Centre are presenting their work at the International Society for the Study of Hypertension in Pregnancy XX World Congress in São Paulo, Brazil.

Our director, Prof Louise Kenny gave a keynote address, Dr. Ali Khashan gave two oral presentations and Amy Aherne gave an early bird lecture on Social Media for Academics.

The wonderful Womens Fitness Gym are holding their second ever Fashion show on Friday 11 Nov in aid of The Irish Centre for Fetal and Neonatal Translation Research in the CUMH.

There will be fantastic shops/Boutiques on board such as Verso & Quiz Clothing from Douglas Court Shopping Centre, Arcade Midleton, Butterfly Ladies Fashion Boutique by the Lough, Silk Peaches in Ballincollig, Icon in Douglas/Wilton Shopping Centre, Born Fashions in Wilton Shopping Centre & our neighbors Elverys Sports.

It will be a fabulous evening showcasing our members success stories along with a performance by the stunning Claudia Rose Music from The Voice UK on the night.

The fashion show will be taking place in Building 2 at 19:30.

Tickets are on sale in the gym, €15 per person.

We look forward to seeing you there!

We are very proud of our team of INFANT Researchers who are presenting the work carried out at the INFANT Centre at the European Academy of Paediatrics Meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.

Every single person attending from INFANT has either an invited talk, a platform presentation or a poster, some have more than one presentation: approx 20 accepted abstracts all together.

We are really proud of our researchers and delighted to be part of such an important conference.

The Wellcome-HRB ICAT Fellowship Programme is open for applications.

Integrated with postgraduate medical training, ICAT will support 4 years of academic training at the beginning of higher specialist training (HST) or equivalent, with clinical and academic mentoring until completion of PhD and CCST/CCT.
ICAT now seeks to appoint the first cohort of 8 well qualified and ambitious medical graduates who aspire to become the next generation of clinical academic leaders.

www.ICATprogramme.org has further details, including the application form and eligability checklist.

The closing date for completed applications – 21st November 2016 @ 16.00

Our Supervisors on the Database:

Prof. Geraldine Boylan

Dr. Keelin O’Donoghue

Dr. Ali Khashan

Prof. David Henshall

INFANT is delighted to annouce that we will host the 10th Brain Monitoring and Neuroprotection in the Newborn Conference in Killarney, Co.Kerry, 5-7 October, 2017

See www.bmn2017.com for more details!

Research from the BASELINE Cohort study has found that some commensal bacteria may act as an anti-inflammatory or protective mechanism against the development of eczema in babies.

The research, funded by the National Children’s Research Centre, and based on academic collaboration between Trinity College Dublin, University College Cork, University of Dundee and the National Institutes of Health, has been published in this month’s Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

The research was gathered from a cohort of patients in the BASELINE Cohort study. By studying a new-born’s skin very carefully over a 1-year period, a complex relationship between the microbiome and skin inflammation was discovered.  The research indicates that babies with atopic dermatitis (AD, though commonly referred to as eczema) had not been colonized with the Staphylococcus bacteria before developing AD. The research also shows that several species of the staphylococcus bacteria appeared to protect against the development of eczema. Eczema has a close relationship with the colonization of Staphylococcus Aureus bacteria, and these bacteria are known to drive flares or exacerbations of AD.

Deirdre Murray, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, UCC and Principal investigator of the Cork BASELINE birth cohort study: “Prof Irvine’s work is advancing our knowledge in why some babies develop eczema, and what we might be able to do to prevent this disorder in the future. This study provides the next crucial piece of the jigsaw.”

Alan Irvine, Professor of Dermatology inTCD and a Principal Investigator in the NCRC said: ‘This work is the first study that has followed babies at several time points in their first year of life and examined the bacterial communities of their skin at this early stage. Our findings suggest that while the relationship between these skin bacterial communities and development of disease is complicated, we have shown for the first time that some bacteria may help prevent skin inflammation in these very young children. Our work is an early discovery, future work will hopefully clarify how these works and determine if we can harness to prevent disease.’

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