Adaptive immune response in neonates

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Identifying newborn and maternal factors contributing to increased susceptibility to infection in neonates

• IRAS ID

  207688

• Contact name

  Gergely Toldi

• Contact email

  gergely.toldi@bwnft.nhs.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  Birmingham Women's Hospital

• Duration of Study in the UK

  1 years, 0 months, 1 days

• Research summary

  Sepsis is responsible for up to 30% of neonatal mortality worldwide, but very little is known regarding the normal function of the neonatal immune system. Taking advantage of recent technologies that require very small blood volumes, we propose a novel and detailed analysis of neonatal immune function. The common perception is that a newborn baby’s ability to fight infection is underdeveloped. The mother’s immune system is altered during pregnancy such that the developing baby is not ‘rejected’ in the same way as a transplanted organ might be. However, it is not yet clear if the immune responses of the fetus are similarly altered to sustain healthy pregnancy and if that might lead to a greater susceptibility to infection. Our experiments will investigate the degree to which the immune system of the newborn is either underdeveloped or suppressed during pregnancy.
  The study will comprise collection of cord blood and postnatal blood samples at 3 weeks of age from 40 healthy term newborns. Our studies will help to better understand neonatal immune physiology and should help to identify mechanisms that might be targeted to reduce the burden of infections in the neonatal period. Indeed, early intervention and preventive measures to support immune function would have enormous value in the setting of neonatal intensive care. Flow cytometry, cytokine production assays and T cell proliferation studies will be performed on these samples. Our studies will help to better understand neonatal immune physiology and should help to identify mechanisms that might be targeted to reduce the burden of infections in the neonatal period and may have enormous value in the setting of neonatal intensive care.

• REC name

  East Midlands - Nottingham 2 Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  16/EM/0379

• Date of REC Opinion

  23 Aug 2016

• REC opinion

  Favourable Opinion