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Research

Division research activities are numerous and diverse, with faculty members engaged in bench, translational, and clinical research projects. There are multiple areas of investigation that we are proud to highlight:

  • Cindy Darnell, M.D., focuses her time on quality initiatives and improving daily care for critically ill children.
  • Peter Luckett, M.D.’s current research interests include clinical trials in pediatric critical care. In 2002, he was an initial organizing member of the Pediatric Acute Lung Injury and Sepsis Investigators (PALISI) clinical trials group, which recently completed a collaboration with members of the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Network (ARDSnet) as part of the NIH Roadmap contract mechanism entitled “Reengineering Clinical Research in Critical Care."
  • Darryl Miles, M.D., works to advance the care of neurocritical illness in children and learn how the brain responds to injury to better understand what we can do to improve neurologic outcomes. He is the UTSW principal investigator for multi-center studies investigating the Approaches and Decisions after Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury (ADAPT) and MRI Biomarkers of Long-term Recovery after Childhood TBI. Dr. Miles is currently leading projects using ultrasound and transcranial Doppler technology to noninvasively measure intracranial pathology in brain related injured children, and he has an ongoing long-term database describing the genetic and prognostic influencers of recovery after TBI. He is a member of the Center for Cerebrovascular Disorders at Children's Medical Center and the Pediatric Neurocritical Care Research Group.
  • Jessica Moreland, M.D., focuses her research on better understanding the cell biology of inflammation with a specific interest in neutrophil biology.  Her laboratory studies neutrophil priming by infectious and inflammatory stimuli and the role of the NADPH oxidase in pro- and anti-inflammatory signaling.  In addition, the laboratory utilizes a murine model of SIRS and multi-organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS).  
  • Lakshmi Raman, M.D.'s interest is in brain injury and the care of ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) patients. She has concentrated her research on the effect of chronic hypoxia on the brain, and has been involved in doing some prospective studies in patients on ECMO and a study comparing different concentrations of hypertonic saline in the management of intracranial hypertension in traumatic brain injury.
  • Drs. Darryl Miles and Lakshmi Raman, in collaboration with Dr. Ann Stowe, have received a grant from the Texas Institute of Brain Injury and Repair (TIBIR) studying the effects of cerebral perfusion pressure in severe traumatic brain injury on central nervous system inflammation after pediatric TBI.
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