2023 Department of Pediatrics Academic Annual Report

Neonatology

PEDIATRIC FACULTY Dr. Namasivayam Ambalavanan.........Co-Director | Professor Dr. Waldemar A. Carlo...........................Co-Director | Professor Dr. Hope Arnold.................................................Assistant Professor Dr. Nitin Arora.....................................................Assistant Professor Dr. Allison Black...............................................Associate Professor Dr. Dean Bruce ................................................Associate Professor Dr. Kathryn Buchan...........................................Assistant Professor Dr. Carl Coghill....................................................................Professor Dr. Samuel Gentle.............................................Assistant Professor Dr. Hannah Hightower...................................Associate Professor Dr. Viral Jain........................................................Assistant Professor Dr. Tamás Jilling...............................................Associate Professor Dr. Nazia Kabani.................................................Assistant Professor Dr. Jegen Kandasamy.......................................Assistant Professor Dr. Andrea Kane.................................................Assistant Professor Dr. Charitharth Vivek Lal ..............................Associate Professor Dr. Vivian Valcarce Luaces...............................Assistant Professor Dr. Myriam Peralta-Carcelen...........................................Professor Dr. Joseph Philips...............................................................Professor Dr. Ariel Salas....................................................Associate Professor Dr. Vivek Shukla.................................................Assistant Professor

Dr. Mary Silverberg............................................Assistant Professor Dr. Brian Sims......................................................................Professor Dr. Christine Stoops..........................................Assistant Professor Dr. Thanh Summerlin.......................................Assistant Professor Dr. Colm Travers................................................Assistant Professor Dr. Kent Willis.....................................................Assistant Professor Dr. Lindy Winter..................................................................Professor Dr. Zaki Yazdi......................................................Assistant Professor

FEATURED RESEARCH MULTICENTER NEONATAL CLINICAL RESEARCH IN THE UNITED STATES

The UAB Division of Neonatology is a founding member of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Neonatal Research Network (NRN). Waldemar A. Carlo, M.D., PI, competitively renewed this grant award for seven more years. Over the 38 years of its existence, this network has defined the standards of multi-institutional collaborative research that has directly resulted in the increased survival and decreased morbidity rates of infants in the United States and abroad. The MoCHA trial of caffeine treatment of moderate preterm infants, led by Dr. Carlo, was completed in 2023. The Budesonide in Babies trial in the NRN, led by Namasivayam Ambalavanan, M.D., has completed ~50% enrollment. UAB investigators have led more NRN trials than any of the participating U.S. universities in this network. UAB Neonatology is consistently one of the top centers in developing, leading and enrolling in important randomized controlled trials and clinical studies. Division members have led major groundbreaking clinical trials, including the SAVE Factorial Trial, the SUPPORT Factorial Trial, the Caffeine MoCHA Trial and the Budesonide in Babies (BiB) Trial. The SUPPORT trial led by UAB resulted in three American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines and multiple national recommendations. A second grant to Dr. Carlo led to the individual participant data meta-analysis, including four other trials using the protocol developed by the UAB team, and resulted in multiple national and international guidelines as well as a revision of the standard of care practices worldwide. Colm Travers, M.D., and Dr. Carlo were invited and applied to NICHD for a randomized controlled trial of an innovative use of CPAP in preterm babies. Dr. Ambalavanan is the principal investigator on multiple NIH grants, including a UG1 multicenter grant on Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal Pharmacological Treatments and an RL1/PL1 grant on Outcomes of Babies with Opioid Exposure (OBOE) project. Dr. Ambalavanan was PI of the UAB Research Center, one of the five research centers in NIH National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) PreVENT consortium, and he is now the MPI of its follow-up R01 grant called “PostVENT.” Additionally, Dr. Ambalavanan is the site PI for other NIH-funded projects, including a U44 with Prapela and R01s in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University and with the University of Virginia. GLOBAL HEALTH RESEARCH The UAB Division of Neonatology is a founding member of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Global Network for Women’s and Children’s Health Research (GN). Dr. Carlo, PI, competitively renewed this grant award for seven more years. Over its 18 years of existence, this network has defined the standards of multi-institutional collaborative research that has directly resulted in the increased survival and decreased morbidity rates

2023 Academic Annual Report

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