Child Health Research Center hosts 36th Annual Research Symposium

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - Childcare experts from across Virginia are sharing what they’ve been working on the last year with all of the research to back it up.

It’s part of the 36th annual Research Symposium at UVA Children’s Hospital.

The symposium serves as a stepping stone for new research about child health.

It not only helps people stay informed, but it allows for new discoveries to be made as well.

“This is kind of the breeding ground of new ideas and new thoughts and new avenues for research and collaborations,” Chair of Pediatrics and Physician-in-Chief for UVA Health Children’s Hospital Dr. Madhusmita Misra said. “Research is really what drives medical knowledge, it is really what makes our work so exciting. It is a frontier of knowledge. And this is really a showcase of all the work that’s been going on at the child health center and the department of pediatrics for the past year.”

Each station at the event highlights a different topic surrounding child health.

“Here we have a lot of work going on with kidney disease, the microbiome, and in the field of pediatric oncology and neonatology,” Misra said. “Also, the Division of Neonatology has een using big data and aritifical intelligence to predict outcomes in patients based on their vital signs”

One of the researchers is Ph.D. student Christian Roig-Laboy.

“My poster really works on understanding pregnancy hormones, and how those influence the gut, and how it shapes and forms,” Roig-Laboy said.

He says he does this work to help break down barriers and improve patient outcomes.

“The overall goal is to better understand women’s health, not only here in Virginia, but also for low and middle-class families,” Roig-Laboy.

Dr. Misra says that is what it’s all about.

“For the young people that are just beginning their lives, or their life’s work in research this is where they really begin to form their ideas and form the collective data that will lead to the bigger studies,” Misra said.

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