Research Faculty
C. Michael Cotten, MD, MHS, Chief
Areas of interest: Use of cord blood therapy for perinatal asphyxia; use of genomic studies to diagnose and guide neonatal therapy.
Samia Aleem, MBBS
Areas of interest: Neonatal infections, chronic lung disease, improving the care and outcomes of infants with congenital diaphragmatic hernias.
Kamlesh Vasant Athavale, MBBS
Areas of interest: Neonatal ventilation, care of the premature infant.
Eric Benner, MD, PhD
Areas of interest: Neural stem cell fate determination with a focus on oligodendrocyte specification following premature birth or perinatal brain injury; technology to noninvasively control neural circuits during development to investigate how altered neural activity impacts oligodendrocyte maturation; novel therapeutic approaches to mitigate myelin injury in high-risk infant population.
Margarita Bidegain, MD, MHS
Areas of interest: Perinatal and neonatal palliative care, health disparities in perinatal care, neonatal sepsis and antibiotics, neuro neonatal intensive care.
Trevor Deon Burt, MD
Areas of interest: Human immune system development, mechanisms of fetal-maternal tolerance, fetal and neonatal immune response to infections, immunopathogenesis of preterm labor, use of ES and iPS cell technologies to study immune development.
Jeffrey Ferranti, MD, MS
Areas of interest: Use of medical informatics, computerized patient safety initiatives.
Kimberley Fisher, PhD, FNP-BC
Areas of interest: Use of cord blood therapy for perinatal asphyxia; evidence-based practices and management of clinical research in the NICU environment.
Ronald N. Goldberg, MD
Areas of interest: Perinatal asphyxia; use of stem cell/cord blood therapy for perinatal asphyxia.
Rachel Greenberg, MD, MHS
Areas of interest: Pharmacology and infectious diseases in infants, differences in drug dosing between infants and older children and adults, drug safety and efficacy in infants, the impact of infection on infants in the neonatal intensive care unit, strategies to reduce the risk for developing infections in infants.
Chi Dang Hornik, PharmD, BCPS
Areas of interest: Clinical pharmacology of infants and children, including pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, drug safety and efficacy, medication safety practices.
Susan Diane Flynn Izatt, MD
Areas of interest: Medical education including innovative teaching strategies and curriculum design.
Deesha D. Mago-Shah, MD
Areas of interest: Improving and expanding the Transitional Medical Home for medically complex and fragile infants, care coordination and transition of care for medically complex infants, convalescent care of chronically ill neonates, neurodevelopmental follow-up of high risk infants, feeding problems in preterm and high risk term infants, including use of naso-gastric tubes to expedite hospital discharge and medical education and mentorship.
William Ferris Malcolm, MD
Areas of interest: Diagnosis and management of gastroesophageal reflux.
Jennifer Hope Peterson, MD
Areas of interest: Milrinone in congenital diaphragmatic hernia, patent ductus arteriosus in premature infants, darbepoetin to improve red cell mass and neuroprotection in preterm infants.
Sharla Marie Rent, MD
Areas of interest: Care and quality improvement practices to globally improve neonatal outcomes.
P. Brian Smith, MD, MHS
Areas of interest: Neonatal pharmacology, drug safety, environmental factors impacting child health, nosocomial infections, neonatal candidiasis.
David T. Tanaka, MD
Areas of interest: Health care economics.
Yui-Lin Tang, BM, MHS
Areas of interest: Infant nutrition and growth, convalescent and developmental care of premature infants.
Kristin Elizabeth Weimer, MD, PhD
Areas of interest: Preventing and/or identifying cytomegalovirus (CMV) and other infections in neonates to facilitate better outcomes, expansion of newborn screening.
Noelle Young, MD
Areas of interest: Neonatal microbiome and metabolism, postnatal growth failure, human milk, outcomes of extremely preterm infants.
Clinical Research
- Problems of low birth weight infants, morbidity and mortality, perinatal asphyxia, ventilatory management, growth and development of high-risk infants, and the role of genomics in neonatal morbidity
- Neurodevelopmental outcomes of high-risk infants.
Basic Research
- Causes of birth defects that particularly affect the cardio-craniofacial field and left-right cardiac axis determination
- Perinatal mechanisms of disrupted development and post-natal injury with special emphasis on lung, brain, and heart
Translational Research
- Neonatal pulmonary hypertension, pulmonary injury, and lung function
Health Care Economics Research
- Medical economics, and biomedical engineering, specifically, in the areas of informatics, optics, virtual reality and microdigital fluidics
The Jean and George Brumley Jr. Neonatal Perinatal Research Institute (NPRI)
The Jean and George Brumley Jr. Neonatal Perinatal Research Institute (NPRI) aims to provide a dedicated environment wherein investigators from different fields can participate in collaborative multidisciplinary research aimed at understanding the basis of key problems suffered by neonates.
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Neonatal Research Network
The Duke Division of Neonatology is a member of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Neonatal Research Network, a consortium of the leading neonatal intensive care units in the country that perform cutting-edge, collaborative clinical research.
Clinical Trials - Neonatal-Perinatal Research Unit (NPRU)
In the Division of Neonatology, we continually seek to improve health care practices by conducting clinical research, which includes our membership with the NICHD. We have many ongoing clinical trials in our Intensive Care Nursery (ICN). The Neonatal-Perinatal Research Unit (NPRU) provides the professional infrastructure to complete these studies. The operations director of the NPRU is Kimberley Fisher, PhD. Dr. Fisher is assisted by six study coordinators as well as other support staff that contribute to the success of clinical trials.