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.’

Online Article

Congratulations to Prof Kenny who was honoured with a Leadership Award, nominated by staff in University College Cork.

Full details of the University Staff Recognition Awards Programme 2016, including membership of the Awards Selection Committee, are available at http://www.ucc.ie/en/sdc/

If you would like to apply for the TY Programme, download the form below and send it in.

The 2017 International Stillbirth Alliance Conference will take place at University College Cork from Friday 22nd September – Sunday 24th September 2017.

Save the Date!

www.isacork2017.com

A new HRB-funded study, shows that a mild blood or oxygen deficit at birth, which leads to a condition called Hypoxic Ischaematic Encephalopathy (HIE) can result in children having lower IQ than their peers at the age of five and increased rates of overall disability.  The study carried out by clinicians at the INFANT Centre, University College Cork, followed a group of babies born with mild, moderate or severe HIE until they were five years of age.

Each year three in every 1000, or roughly 180, children born in Ireland will develop clinical signs of brain dysfunction, or hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE) which require the baby to be admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit. HIE varies in severity and is graded as mild, moderate or severe.

Currently all babies with a moderate or severe grade of HIE are offered cooling therapy. The baby is cared for in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, placed on a cooling blanket and their body temperature is maintained at 33.5-34.5 degrees centigrade for 72 hours. Cooling at this crucial time reduces the energy expenditure of the brain, reduces inflammation and gives the brain time to recover improving the chances of a good long-term outcome.

Cooling has repeatedly been shown to be safe and effective for babies with moderate and severe HIE and almost halves their risk of cerebral palsy or moderate-to-severe disability at 5 years. However, to date children with mild grade of HIE (approximately 90 babies each year in Ireland) are not cooled because their outcome has generally been thought to be very good.

According to Dr Deirdre Murray, HRB Clinician Scientist and Lead Investigator on the study,

“We wanted to examine cognitive and motor outcomes among all grades of HIE babies up to the age of five. We monitored the function of the baby’s brain very carefully in the first few days after birth by measuring the tiny electrical signals of the brain (EEG). This helped us to accurately grade the degree of altered brain function.  Our research has shown that at five years, children admitted to the NICU with a mild grade of HIE at birth have IQ scores approximately 10 points lower than their peers. At five years the children had higher rates of difficulties than we would expect in the areas of learning, speech, movement or behaviour, with 35% of the group having problems in one or more areas.

Clearly the outcome for children experiencing mild HIE is not as good as previously thought.  This raises the question of whether infants with mild HIE should also be offered cooling therapy soon after birth. At present we don’t have an answer to this question as no trials to date have examined the effectiveness of cooling in infants mild HIE and whether this would improve their outcome.”

INFANT Director and study co-investigator Professor Geraldine Boylan says, “This study is very important given more than half of all infants with newborn encephalopathy are assigned a mild grade at birth and do not receive cooling therapy. This study has clearly shown that these infants have significant problems by five years, which represents a significant burden of disability in Ireland, and worldwide.”

Speaking about the research Dr Graham Love, Chief Executive at the HRB said, ‘this work highlights the importance of embedding research into everyday clinical care, and then using the evidence it provides to inform clinical practice or future research ’.

Deirdre Murray adds, “We urgently need to examine our management of this group of infants in the crucial first days after their birth and further research is needed to assess the impact of cooling on newborns with mild HIE.”

We will host our annual research day on 9 September 2016 at the Western Gateway Building.

Registration is FREE through Eventbrite: please register HERE

The INFANT Centre will host its annual research day on 9 September 2016 at the Western Gateway Building.

6 CPD Points are Available 

Registration is FREE through Eventbrite: please register HERE

BETTER OUTCOMES FOR MATERNAL, FETAL & INFANT HEALTH

Western Gateway Building, Western Road, Cork. 

PROGRAMME

08.30: Registration

9.00:  Opening Address

Prof Louise Kenny, Director of INFANT

09:15-10:45 – Intrauterine Growth Restriction & Pregnancy Loss

Chair: Dr Keelin O’Donoghue, PI Infant

KEYNOTE: PROF PETER VON DADELSZEN, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON.

1. Intrapartum Deaths and Intrapartum Event Related Neonatal Deaths int he Republic of Ireland, 2011-2014

Karen McNamara, Richard Greene and Keelin O’Donoghue 

2. Rates of Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Secondary to IUGR over a 10 Year Period

Ciara Nolan and Etaoin Kent 

3.The General Populations’ Understanding of Miscarriage: A Cross-Sectional Study

Sarah Meaney, Jacqueline Sheehan, Rachel Rice and Keelin O’Donoghue

Coffee Break & Poster Session  

11.15-12.45 – Clinical Trials in Perinatal Populations

Chair: Prof Geraldine Boylan, Director of INFANT

KEYNOTE: DR MARK TURNER, UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL.

1. Risk based monitoring (RBM) tools for clinical trial monitoring – a narrative review

Caroline Hurley, Frances Shiely, Jessica Power, Mike Clarke, Joseph Eustace, Evelyn Flanagan and Patricia Kearney.

2. Habitual Calcium and Vitamin D Intakes in Pregnant Irish Women; Preliminary Data from the DMAT Randomised Controlled Trial

Karen O’ Callaghan, Áine Hennessy, Louise Kenny and Mairead Kiely

3. Validation of altered miRNA in neonatal hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy: The BiHIVE 2 Study

Ann Marie Looney, Marc O’Sullivan, Mikael Finder, Conor Bogue, Caroline Ahearne, Geraldine Boylan, Boubou Hallberg and Deirdre Murray

Lunch & Poster Session

13.30 – 15:00 – Immunology, Dermatology and Atopy

Chair: Dr Deirdre Murray, PI Infant

KEYNOTE: PROF ALAN IRVINE, TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN.

1. A dose-interval study of a dual probiotic preparation in preterm infants.

 C Watkins, K Murphy, Eugene M Dempsey, Carol-Anne O’ Shea, P W O’ Toole, R P Ross, C Stanton and C A Ryan

2. Carbohydrate Syntrophy during feeding on Mother’s Milk enhances the establishment of Bifidobacterium breve in the neonatal gastrointestinal tract.

Mary O’Connell Motherway

3. Postnatal Breastfeeding rates in low risk Nulliparous women in a tertiary hospital

Lisa Mc Sweeney, Cathy Monteith, Colm Breatnach, Patrick Dicker, Adam James, Elizabeth Tully, Maura Lavery, Afif El Khuffash and Etaoin Kent

Coffee Break & Poster Session

15.15 – 16:45 – Innovation in Medical Engineering

Chair: Prof Frederic Adam, PI Infant

KEYNOTE: MATTHEW PICKET, CERNER CORPORATION.

1. Estimating the Gestational Age of Preterm Infants with EEG

John O’ Toole, Elena Pavlidis, Sampsa Vanhatalo, Geraldine Boylan and Nathan Stevenson    

2. Further enhancing obstetric training through the amalgamation of simulation and virtual reality

Donnchadh Coffey, Sabin Tabirca and Richard Greene      

3. Community Connected Health for Pregnancy: The case of LEANBH

Simon Woodworth, Paidi O Reilly, Molly Mattsson, Louise Kenny and Frederic Adam      

17:00:  Prize Giving

Register for your FREE ticket http://tinyurl.com/infant2016registration