How different lung problems add to breathing effort in premature babies with bronchopulmonary dysplasia
Official title: Calculating the Components of Work of Breathing in Neonates with Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia
Funded at Cincinnati Childrens Hosp Med Ctr · NIH-11169664 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project will build a tool that estimates how much each lung problem makes a premature baby with bronchopulmonary dysplasia work harder to breathe.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Cincinnati Childrens Hosp Med Ctr NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Cincinnati, United States) |
| Project start | August 15, 2024 |
| Project end | June 30, 2029 |
| Funding year | 2025 |
| Award (this year) | $797,630 |
| NIH project number | 5R01HL173164-02 |
| Project ID | NIH-11169664 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal candidates are premature infants diagnosed with bronchopulmonary dysplasia, particularly those receiving respiratory support or showing mixed lung patterns on imaging or clinical exam.
✕Less likely to help
Babies without BPD, older children or adults, or infants whose lung issues fall outside the studied BPD phenotypes may not benefit from this tool.
What this research studies
If your baby was born very early and has BPD, researchers are developing a tool to figure out which lung changes are making breathing hard. They will measure the parts of breathing effort—stretching the lungs versus pushing air through narrowed airways—and connect those measurements to different BPD patterns like scarring, overinflation, or airway collapse. The team will create calculations that show how much each problem contributes to the baby's work of breathing and test the tool on real infants to confirm it works. That information is meant to help doctors pick treatments that target the specific problem in each baby.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, the tool could help doctors personalize treatments so each baby gets therapies that target the exact lung problem making breathing difficult.
How similar studies have gone: Prior work has described BPD subtypes, but making a validated calculator to quantify each subtype's contribution to breathing effort is a novel and relatively untested approach.
Where this research is happening
-
Cincinnati Childrens Hosp Med Ctr
Cincinnati, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Bates, Alister — Cincinnati Childrens Hosp Med Ctr
- Study coordinator: Bates, Alister
Related research
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This grant explores how mismatched growth of airways, airspaces, and blood vessels during early life might lead to lasting lung problems in bronchopulmonary dysplasia and how that affects people over time.
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Understanding how breathing effort in premature babies with lung disease comes from different lung problems
A research project aims to create a patient-specific tool to measure how different features of bronchopulmonary dysplasia contribute to the struggle to breathe in premature infants.
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L-Citrulline for BPD-related Pulmonary Hypertension in Preterm Babies
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.