Latest News
MSTP awarded research grant
Wednesday, October 5, 2022
Adam Geber, MSTP PhD candidate in IMV, was awarded a Neonatology Small Grant to study the unique features of the early developing immune system and their impact on primary and secondary viral exposures.
Congratulations Adam!
NIH-NIMH Grant Funds Research on the Microbiome and Infant Neurodevelopment
Friday, July 15, 2022
A multidisciplinary team of investigators at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry (URMC) has been awarded funding from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIH-NIMH) to study the effect of prenatal maternal anxiety on infant gut microbiome developmental milestones that align with postnatal brain development. The project is led by Steven Gill, PhD (Microbiology and Immunology), Kristin Scheible, MD (Neonatology), and Thomas O’Connor, PhD (Psychiatry).
Neurodevelopmental disorders affect an estimated 10-20% of children, and are among the most persisting and costly disorders in human health. Furthermore, prenatal maternal psychological distress is increasingly recognized as a common condition that has been linked with child neurodevelopment and other health conditions. The investigators in this study will use a systems biology approach that integrates repeated longitudinal measures of gut microbiome function, infant nutrition and neurodevelopmental markers of anxiety to determine the effects of the microbiome on infant neurodevelopment and potentially modifiable origins of the infant gut microbiome at birth. This five-year study significantly advances our conceptual and mechanistic understanding of the gut-brain-microbiome axis and its role in infant brain development.
The project builds upon the pregnancy-infant cohort followed in the ongoing NIH-NICHD funded URMC Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program. In addition to Drs. Gill, Scheible and O’Connor, other URMC faculty contributing to the study include Bridget Young, PhD (Pediatrics), and Michael Sohn, PhD and Xing Qiu, PhD (Biostatistics).