INFANT, the Irish Centre for Fetal and Neonatal Translational Research, is an international leader of discovery and innovation in perinatal healthcare. INFANT commits to support the implementation of the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescent’s Health by continuing to progress our research and innovation in perinatal healthcare.
INFANT addresses the largely unmet worldwide clinical need for effective screening tests for the most common complications of pregnancy and the most significant problems for newborn babies. INFANT recognises that maternal and perinatal complications, which account for almost 10% of the global burden of disease, are disproportionately experienced in the developing world. For example, in developing countries, a woman is seven times more likely to develop pre-eclampsia than a woman in a developed country. From 10-25% of these cases will result in maternal death (WHO, 2007). While Research and Development investment in perinatal health remains small and non-strategic, it is estimated that equitable investment in this area over the next 10 to 20 years could avert 3% of the global disease burden. INFANT addresses this inequality through pioneering innovation in next generation devices that will transform antenatal and neonatal healthcare and service delivery on a global level. We are committed to translating our research into affordable, accessible and robust interventions. These will have great potential to effect important health impacts in resource limited settings in the developing world where the burden of disease for pregnant women as well as unborn and newborn babies, is highest.
On our way to achieving our vision, INFANT has already:
- Pioneered personalised medicine approaches
- Identified clinical, blood-borne and imaging biomarkers of perinatal disease
- Developed prototype algorithms for the prediction of adverse pregnancy and neonatal outcomes.
INFANT will deliver the following specific commitments over the next 4 years:
- INFANT will fund the purchase and delivery of an Electroencepalography (EEG) machine and cooling blanket to be used in a middle income country – at the neonatal intensive care unit at Gomel University Regional Maternity Hospital in Belarus. This equipment will be used to monitor and treat Hypoxic Ischaemic Encephalopathy, a leading cause of death and disability among newborns. This direct provision of equipment represents a financial commitment of €40,000. This commitment will be delivered by the end of Q1 2016. INFANT will also make in an-kind contribution by setting up the equipment and training hospital personnel in the use of the equipment. Outcomes from this commitment will be:
o Moderate therapeutic hypothermia will be introduced in Belarus for the first time.
o Better diagnosis and access to modern treatment will become available to infants with HIE.
o Long-term outcome for infants with HIE and their families will potentially improve.
o This commitment will also help to establish long-term relationships with the neonatal intensive care unit
(NICU) in Gomel University Regional Maternity Hospital in order to facilitate neonatal clinical research and development on a regional level. - INFANT will fund a PhD student from Zimbabwe to come to the INFANT centre for four years (Q1 2016- Q4 2019) to conduct research in the area of pre-eclampsia. This commitment represents an investment in knowledge exchange and capacity building which will, ultimately, contribute to strengthening of the health system in Zimbabwe. This represents a financial commitment of €95,000 (€23,770 per year for four years).
- INFANT commits to raising awareness of the new Global Strategy through links in our website, a soon as the Strategy is published.
- INFANT will dedicate one of its fortnightly Research Seminars each year from 2016 up to 2019, to presenting and discussing progress towards delivering on our commitments to the new Global Strategy. This will increase awareness in our research teams of the global need and the global challenges in meeting these needs and therefore ensure that INFANT technology is produced fit for purpose in LMICs where the clinical need is greatest. Up to 2030, INFANT will fulfill its research commitment to the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health by working with our industry partners to translate our research into affordable, accessible and robust interventions that will reduce dependence on expensive technology and scarce, highly trained human resources, and thus provide affordable technology based solutions for unmet clinical needs.
These will include:
- Through the exploitation of emerging metabolomic technology, INFANT has identified biomarkers of pre-eclampsia. This technology has been licensed to an industry partner and, over the next 5 years, a robust pre-symptomatic screening test will be brought to market. This, together with similar research being carried out to develop screening tests for fetal growth restriction and pre-term birth, means INFANT and its partners will make available accessible, affordable and robust screening tests (including chip-based technology suitable for deployment in low resource settings) for the leading causes of illness and death in newborn babies.
- INFANT will develop a similar suite of biomarkers and an algorithm for pre-term birth based on metabolomic technology, over the next 5 years.
- An algorithm for seizure detection in neonates will be ready for licence by QI 2017. At least two additional algorithms will have been developed for use in monitoring in Neonatal Intensive Care Units. INFANT has identified early biomarkers for Hypoxic Ischaemic Encephalopathy (the brain insult which results from insufficient oxygen or blood supply to the newborn brain during labour and delivery) one of the leading causes of neurological disability worldwide. Over the next 5 years a bedside diagnostic algorithm will be developed to provide point of care diagnosis of HIE. This will address the clinical need for a fast and reliable way to identify which babies need prioritizing for therapy (such as therapeutic hypothermia)- a critical limitation in low resource settings where accurate triage would be maximally impactful .
- INFANT is working with industry to develop paediatric formulations of repurposed drugs to treat neonatal seizures and hypotension in pre-term babies, over the next 5 years.
- INFANT is investigating possible therapies for pre-eclampsia and other placenta related conditions, such as preterm birth.
- The novel patient monitoring devices we are developing to analyse newborn brain activity will mean pharmaceutical companies can develop and can work with us to monitor the therapeutic performance of drugs over the next 5-10 years.
- INFANT is developing decision support tools for use during labour, such as fetal EEG, so that scarce resources can be more efficiently deployed.
- INFANT is developing novel ways of assessing cognitive development in infants, using tablet based technology that can be used in low resource settings.
- INFANT is developing technologies to remotely monitor the wellbeing of women and fetuses.
- INFANT’s dedicated maternal and child nutrition research programme is addressing the opportunity to meet infant nutritional requirements for optimal growth and developmental outcomes. Results from this research will, over the next five years: inform regulatory bodies and help to inform evidence-based recommendations for vitamin D during pregnancy; inform novel nutritional management strategy to optimize the growth and development of bone, body composition and the brains of Very Low Birth Weight babies with the aim of improving their long-term health; will investigate how infant nutrition influences gut bacteria and how these factors together affect child growth, physical and mental development, which can determine adult health and long term disease risk.
- As part of the International Neonatal Consortium, INFANT will, over the next 5 years become a “go to” centre for clinical trials. We will use our position in the consortium to advise on policy making and advocate for research in under-resourced areas.
- INFANT’ s leadership of the Irish Perinatal Clinical Trials Network over the next 5 years will enable us to fast-track technologies and interventions developed within INFANT to clinical trials and thus to the bed and cot-side where they will have greatest impact on reducing the burden of disease amongst women and children.
- By continuously disseminating our research findings in high impact international journals, and through international conferences and fora, INFANT will contribute to the evidence base for clinical guidelines and protocols that will help reduce mother and child morbidity and mortality.
