INFANT wins 2^nd national award for digital diagnostics research – AI powered decision support tool to identify brain seizures in newborns recognised.

INFANT was named winner of ‘The Best Application of AI in an Academic Research Body.

INFANT PhD student Alison O’ Shea and the INFANT Engineering team were recognised for their use of AI to diagnose brain injury in infants. The team has developed an algorithm that detects seizures in newborns and alerts the healthcare team that the baby may need some additional support.  Currently, seizure detection is only possible through analysing EEG and under normal neonatal intensive care conditions, less than 10% of seizures are detected.

Now in its second year, the AI Awards are run by AI Ireland, a non-profit business with backing from Microsoft Ireland and Alldus International.

Congratulations to the AI Ireland team, sponsors, nominees and awardees on such a successful event.

PRESS RELEASE

Newborns who suffer mild oxygen deprivation impacted in later life

Research raises questions about the current medical approach during birth

Babies who suffer mild oxygen deprivation at birth have impaired cognitive outcomes compared to children with uneventful deliveries, joint Irish and Swedish research reveals today.

Lack of oxygen to the newborn brain affects almost 200 babies in Ireland each year and results in death or disability in over 1 million infants each year globally. The condition, known as Hypoxic Ischaemic Encephalopathy (HIE), causes brain injury due to lack of oxygen and can leave newborns with permanent neurological damage or cerebral palsy.

Researchers at the Irish Centre for Maternal and Child Health Research (INFANT) at University College Cork (UCC), along with colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden joined together to examine the outcome in a large number of babies with this condition.

Combining data from infants in Cork and Stockholm, this study found that a significant number of children who suffer mild HIE at birth have impaired cognitive outcomes compared to children with uneventful deliveries. These early delays can herald learning or behavioural difficulties which become more significant over time.

HIE in children is graded as mild, moderate and severe. The only proven treatment for HIE is Therapeutic Hypothermia (known as cooling therapy) if introduced within the first six hours of birth. Cooling reduces the risk of death and disability in infants with moderate to severe HIE. Randomized controlled trials of cooling to date have not included infants with mild HIE due to a perceived good prognosis.

This research today raises the question as to whether these babies should be treated at birth with cooling therapy. Currently, worldwide, this therapy is reserved for babies with more severe degrees of HIE.

This study analysed data from 471 children recruited to research studies in Cork and Stockholm between 2007-2015. The study found that children with mild HIE at birth have significantly lower cognitive composite scores than children with uneventful deliveries when measured with the Bayley Scales of Toddler and Infant Development 3rd edition (BSITD-III) at 2-3 years.

The findings published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics highlights the need for clinical trials of neuroprotective therapies to include children with mild HIE.

INFANT Principal Investigator, UCC Professor Deirdre Murray is Head of Paediatrics and Child Health at Cork University Hospital and leads research in the area of HIE and perinatal asphyxia.

Speaking about the findings Prof Murray said, “The results from this study are significant. In 471 children recruited across two different countries, we saw the same pattern. At present, doctors who care for these newborns do not know whether to treat them or not. No trials have studied effects in these infants with milder injury. Our study has shown that their development at 2 years is significantly lower than expected. A large, adequately powered trial is urgently needed to answer this question and to guide doctors in their care of infants with mild HIE.”

The study was supported by funding from the Health Research Board, Science Foundation Ireland and the Wellcome Trust.

Read the full publication here.

New research by INFANT researcher, Dr Elaine McCarthy and INFANT PI Prof Mairead Kiely has been published in leading nutrition research journal, Nutrition Bulletin.

Iron deficiency is the most common micronutrient deficiency worldwide. Iron is essential for the development of multiple organ systems, most especially the developing brain.

Iron deficiency, particularly during sensitive periods of brain development, such as in early childhood, is associated with long‐lasting adverse consequences for cognition, motor function and behaviour. Little consideration has been given to iron deficiency in newborn infants and its potential health consequences.

The team highlighted potential strategies for the prevention of neonatal iron deficiency and its long-term health consequences.

READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nbu.12407

Earlier this month, our PhD student Alison O ‘Shea attended the Grace Hopper Celebration in Orlando, Florida.

Read all about Alison’s experience below.

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The Grace Hopper Celebration is a yearly event which invites technologists from all over the world to come together and celebrate women in computing. This year’s celebration was the largest yet, with an attendance of 25,000 people. It was held in Orlando, Florida and I was honoured to be able to attend on a Google Travel Scholarship.

The theme for GHC 2019 was ‘We will Change the World’, this message of hope and empowerment was reflected in the opening keynote address. The keynote highlighted inspiring women from a variety of backgrounds in different stages of their careers. Each speaker told their personal and professional stories in front of a captivated crowd of 25,000 attendees, with a background of inspirational quotes and dazzling lighting.

Aside from the spectacle of GHC, there is a sense of community and positivity that permeates all aspects of this event. Every person you speak to at GHC is friendly, an exemplar in their field and believes in the power of diversity. Attending advanced technical panel discussions with representatives from major companies and noticing that everyone on the panel was a woman with a different background and a different journey is something I haven’t seen before. This kind of representation is really important for young people starting their careers in engineering.

Machine learning and data science were emphasised at this year’s GHC, as Dr Fei-Fei Li was awarded the prestigious Technical Leadership Abie Award for her innovative and impactful career in computer vision. As a machine learning engineer at INFANT, I was extremely interested in the workshop sessions in the Data Science and AI tracks. These hands-on sessions gave attendees the chance to explore both fundamental and cutting-edge concepts in a practical and approachable way. Technologists of all ages from a wide variety of backgrounds tackled challenges in domains like image and natural language processing; by working in small groups at these sessions new relationships were forged and problems were investigated from different viewpoints.

There was also a focus on maintaining design inclusivity in the AI. How can we ensure that diverse perspectives are included in the AI pipeline? This is a question that should be asked in all areas of technology development; innovation should be led by diverse teams with many viewpoints represented. The aim of GHC and its parent organisation, AnitaB.org, is to ensure that we have equal female representation in technology. The vision is clear, 50/50 by the year 2025. In order to achieve this goal everyone in the tech sector needs to work with this mission in mind. The four days I experienced at GHC2019 were uplifting and inspiring, and I know that I will bring the Grace Hopper spirit back into my daily research. The real impact of this conference will be ensuring that diversity and inclusion are intrinsically connected with technical innovation and leadership.

Congratulations to our PhD researcher Anne Helps who won runner up prize for her poster ‘Analysis of Irish Inquiry Reports relating to Pregnancy Loss Services’.

She received the award at the International Stillbirth Alliance’s 11th Annual Conference in Madrid, last week.

ISA’s annual conference is one of the most important events of the year for a global community of scientists, mothers, fathers and health professionals who work continuously to reduce the 5 million deaths that occur annually around the world.

In addition to Anne’s achievement, the Pregnancy Loss Research Group, led by PI Dr Keelin O’ Donoghue contributed to the conference further, delivering seven oral presentations, one plenary, one workshop and twenty-one posters (six of which were highly commended).

Congratulations to all the team!

Babies born by planned caesarean are more likely to be obese in early childhood

The research, published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, discovered that planned caesarean birth was a significant predictor of obesity at age two, however this association was not apparent by the time children were four-and-a-half years old.

The international comparative study examined data collected as part of this country’s largest longitudinal study, the University of Auckland’s Growing Up in New Zealand. The study examined data collected for more than 6,000 children born in 2009 and 2010.  Researchers cross referenced delivery data with height and weight measurements for the same children when they were aged two and four-and-a-half years old.

Lead researcher, Dr Gwinyai Masukume says the findings highlight the potential impacts on infant growth of different delivery choices. Gwinyai says “the results show that the type of delivery may have an impact on infant growth rates, at least in the short term and I hope this latest research will feed into discussions between mothers and their medical professionals about delivery options”.

This research was carried out in conjunction with the Centre for Longitudinal Research at the University of Auckland, University College Cork, University of Leicester and the University of Liverpool.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jech-2019-212591

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!