Help preterm babies combat infections
Around one in every 13 babies is born prematurely – before 37 weeks of pregnancy – in the UK.
Bacterial infections are especially dangerous for these vulnerable babies and sadly can result in loss of life or serious lifelong disabilities such as cerebral palsy. That’s why we’re funding urgently needed research, led by Dr Deena Gibbons at King's College London, that could help preterm babies get the best treatments to combat infection, helping to save lives and reduce life-changing complications.
Our aim is to improve our understanding of how the preterm immune system reacts to life-threatening bacterial infections, which will be crucial for developing new ways to improve outcomes for these vulnerable babies.
Currently, confirming which infections a baby has can be problematic as the normal tests are hard to interpret in preterm babies. But the researchers at King's College London hope to change this. They will study how the preterm immune system works in a series of blood samples that they have collected from nearly 150 preterm babies, many of whom had experienced a confirmed infection.
They will analyse these samples to see if they can identify any specific markers that could be used to diagnose a bacterial infection. They will also investigate if there are any differences in the immune cells of babies who later developed a serious infection.
Ultimately, we hope this will lead to new tests that can help identify babies who may be at higher risk of developing a severe infection so that steps can be taken to help protect them in the critical, first few weeks of life.