Pediatric Research
The Department of Pediatrics has a long history of basic, clinical and translational research. An important goal of our research programs is to help develop more pediatricians and scientists who are dedicated to advancing the application of basic science knowledge to the health problems important to children. Areas of both funded and unfunded research in Pediatrics include:
- Adolescent medicine
- Vaccines in adolescents
- Vaccines acceptability
- Allergy and Immunology (basic mechanisms)
- Mucosal immunity
- Airway inflammation
- Plant allergens and IgE
- Human milk immune system
- Oxidative injury, antioxidant regulation
- Epigenetics control of immunity
- Transcriptional regulation of immune genes
- noncoding (nc)RNAs and immune regulation
- Clinical trials – Vaccines (through the Sealy Institute for Vaccine Sciences)
- Infectious diseases
- Viral bronchiolitis
- COVID-19 – Antibody in human milk
- RSV pathogenesis and therapeutics development, animal models
- hMPV pathogenesis, animal models
- Clinical trials of pharmaceutical agents and vaccines
- Proteomics and functional genomics studies of infectious diseases
- Lung diseases
- Asthma development and RSV bronchiolitis
- Airway remodeling and inflammation
- Secondhand tobacco smoke exposure in infant bronchiolitis
- Extracellular vesicles (EVs) and exosome cargo
- Neonatology
- Neonatal lung injury
- Intrauterine asphyxia
- Necrotizing enterocolitis
- Neurodegenerative mechanisms
- Alzheimer’s Disease, biomarkers, ncRNAs
- Role of microbiome in neurodegenerative diseases
- Sexual health including topical microbicides and sexual development
- DNA viruses such as human papillomavirus (HPV)
- Genital herpes simplex virus (HSV)
- Vaccine basic research
- Paramyxoviruses (RSV, hMPV)
- Human coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2)
Metabolic Diseases
Research on Canavan disease and PKU. ..READ MORE
Viruses
Dr. Antonella Casola, a professor of in the Department of Pediatrics
and infectious disease expert at UTMB, and her collaborators tested a
chemical substance that slowly releases hydrogen sulfide against
in vitro
models of viruses such as influenza, Ebola, Far-eastern sub-type
tick-borne flavivirus, Rift Valley fever and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic
fever virus. The test showed that the hydrogen sulfide significantly
reduced replication of all the tested viruses....
READ MORE