Infant Research Centre

27/08/2025

The Missing Voice in MedTech? Why Nurses Are Essential to Innovation.

INFANT's Dr Mary Anne Ryan speaks with INFANT,UCC spin-out CergenX about the critical role nurses' insights play in shaping neonatal and paediatric medtech solutions.

"Listen to nurses. Their input is not an add-on - it’s foundational. Because the people who work closest to the smallest patients often carry the biggest ideas for change.”

Read the full conversation: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/missing-voice-medtech-why-nurses-essential-innovation-cergenx-ruk4f 💡

In conversation with Dr Mary Anne Ryan , Research Support Officer at INFANT Research Centre, University College Cork. “I remember my first exposure to a very premature infant—my first placement in a neonatal ward during training.

20/08/2025

📢 UCC-led digital health project awarded almost €5m to save lives of mothers and babies in Africa.

LINDA-FAMILIA, meaning “Protect the Family” in Swahili, has been funded under the Horizon Europe Programme to revolutionise maternal and child health in East Africa.

Led by the INFANT Research Centre at University College Cork, the initiative will deploy scalable, interoperable digital health systems to track infectious diseases and support health services in pregnancy, postpartum, and childhood care.

Huge congratulations to the research team, including project lead & INFANT PI Prof. Ali Khashan, INFANT Lead Investigator Dr Simon Woodworth(CUBS) and to Dr Aileen Murphy(CUBS) , Dr Ian Pitt(SEFS) and Julie Arnott(CoMH). 👏

Read all about it: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ucc-led-digital-health-project-awarded-almost-5m-gk8xe

18/08/2025

🗨️ “Events like this let us share our research in a way that’s fun, interactive, inclusive and accessible. It’s also a way for families to see the faces behind the research and for us to hear directly from the CP community.

Engaging families throughout the research process has always been integral to our work at the INFANT Research Centre, and these events shows how important it really is.”
- Prof. Geraldine Boylan, INFANT UCC Director

🔎 Read all about the Family Fun Science Fair here: https://www.infantcentre.ie/2025/08/14/roar-for-research-families-explore-science-at-fota-wildlife-park/

14/08/2025

🦁ROAR for Research: Families Explore Science at Fota Wildlife Park

Last Saturday, we welcomed over 530 visitors to our Family Fun Science Fair at Fota Wildlife Park’s Education Centre, a day packed with fun, discovery, education and creativity, with a special focus on Cerebral Palsy (CP) research from the ELEVATE Research Programme.

🧠 🐾 🖥️ 🔎 From when the doors opened, the place was buzzing with excitement. We had lots of interactive exhibits including: CP Research & Awareness talks, meeting the “Wild Scientists,” to AI brain demos, eye monitoring, arts & crafts to the Bloody Detective Workshop, and a Bricks 4 Kidz Workshop- fun for all the family.

We were delighted to be joined by some of our collaborators In4kids, Cork University Foundation (UCC Alumni and Friends) and the Cerebral Palsy Foundation.

🤝 Thank you to the ELEVATE funders: CPF and Research Ireland, to our partners, volunteers, team members and everyone who came to visit us on the day!

📰 Read all about the event here: https://www.infantcentre.ie/2025/08/14/roar-for-research-families-explore-science-at-fota-wildlife-park/

06/08/2025

👏 Huge congratulations to Dr Lisa Kiely MD, a Dermatology Specialist Registrar and an Irish Clinical Academic Training (ICAT) Programme Fellow at the INFANT Research Centre, University College Cork on her Fulbright Irish Award, the only one for UCC.

Lisa's research focuses on using advanced imaging techniques to improve detection and monitoring of disease activity in morphea, a rare inflammatory skin condition. Her work aims to improve how this condition is monitored and managed in clinical practice.

As a Fulbright Irish Student Awardee, she will travel to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, where she will collaborate with Professor Heidi Jacobe, a global leader in morphea research.

Well deserving Lisa 👏

06/08/2025

🔬 Now Recruiting for the ENIGMA Research Study - Understanding Mental Health Challenges in Autistic Adolescents.

Children diagnosed with Autism often experience mental health difficulties such as anxiety and low mood, but what triggers these challenges remains unclear. The ENIGMA Study is working to change that. The study aims to deepen the researchers understanding of the factors influencing the mental health of autistic children. By involving families, conducting assessments and completing questionnaires, the study seeks to develop effective support systems for these children in the future.

Funded by Horizon Europe, ENIGMA is observing up to 400 autistic adolescents (ages 11–15) across Europe to explore how environment, stress, diet, and activity levels influence their mental health.

❓ Who is it for?
• Adolescents clinically diagnosed with Autism.
• Must be able to interact verbally.
• Willingness to attend all study visits in Cork and wear a provided skin patch for 3-5 days, every month, at home for 6 months.
• Access to and ability to operate a smartphone.

What’s Involved:
📊 Questionnaires and clinical assessments over 5 visits over a six-month period at Cork University Hospital.

📱 Use of a wearable Vivalink skin patch and smartphone app
🏠 At-home sample collection (urine and stool)
📩 Interested or want to learn more?

Contact the ENIGMA Research Team:
📧 ENIGMA@ucc.ie | 📞 (086) 143-6020

More info, visit: https://www.infantcentre.ie/2025/08/06/enigma-study/

05/08/2025

*WE'RE HIRING* - Physiotherapist🚀

➡️ We are looking for a Physiotherapist to join the INFANT Research Centre at University College Cork team. This role will support the work of the ELEVATE Programme, which aims to improve both the Early Detection of Cerebral Palsy (CP), and the outcomes for those with CP.

The individual will be involved in the follow-up of high-risk infants and will be required to perform specific standardised assessments including the General Movements assessment, the HINE exam, AIMS and Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Knowledge of these assessments would be an advantage.

Additional responsibilities will include supervision and administration of therapy in the intervention studies. Training will be provided on the specific techniques used in the intervention studies, but experience in providing therapy interventions for children with CP is preferred.

If you're a looking for a new challenge in a world-class research environment, we want to hear from you.

⌛ Deadline: 12pm: 22 August 2025
ℹ️ This is a part time (0.5) role for 2 years and will necessitate travel to Kildare/ between sites involved in the studies.

📩 More info: https://my.corehr.com/pls/uccrecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.jobspec?p_id=086233

25/07/2025

📢 Publication Alert!

📰 "Towards universal early screening for cerebral palsy: a roadmap for automated General Movements Assessment" eClinicalMedicine – The Lancet Discovery Science

➡️ This paper presents a global roadmap to develop and implement AI-enabled General Movements Assessment (GMA) for universal early detection of cerebral palsy (CP).

Why is this important?

✅AI-GMA can make automated universal screening for CP using the GMA available to everyone, leading to earlier intervention and better outcomes for children worldwide.

✅ The roadmap calls for a coordinated, equitable, and scalable global approach, especially important for low-resource settings.

👏 Professor Deirdre Murray, INFANT PI and CPF Chair in Early Brain Injury and CP at UCC - funded through the ELEVATE programme is part of a large international interdisciplinary team driving this forward.

CP360 is funded by Cerebral Palsy Foundation (CPF) and Cerebral Palsy Alliance, European Union Born to Get There, the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Read more: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2025.103379

06/07/2025

📢 Attention GPs, Practice Nurses, Midwives & Obstetricians

We need your experience and insights to help shape the future of follow-up care pathways in Ireland.

We’re inviting doctors, nurses, obstetricians, and midwives across Ireland to take part in a new research study focused on healthcare for women who have experienced preeclampsia in pregnancy.

This study is led by Dr Peter Barrett and conducted through the INFANT Research Centre at University College Cork.

🕒 What’s involved? A 30-minute once-off interview.

📩 Interested? Express interest here: https://lnkd.in/dvSqGZPi to receive more information.

04/07/2025

🙌 Join us in congratulating Dr Soraia Ventura, for successfully defending her PhD titled “Electroencephalographic Study of Sleep Architecture in Infants at Four Months”

🔎 Soraia explored how sleep can serve as a window into brain development. Using sleep EEG, a non-invasive, quantifiable and objective assessment tool, using a large cohort, her research characterised the normative sleep features at 4-month-old infants. Her work also identified EEG features that can help predict neurodevelopmental outcomes at 18 months with the potential to allow targeted intervention in a period characterised by great neuroplasticity.

This research showed how early-life interventions, like routine parent-led massage, can positively influence brain maturation, even in healthy term-born infants.

She also demonstrated that moderate to late preterm infants, a group often underrepresented in research, show differences in their sleep EEG patterns which are linked to later neurodevelopmental outcomes. 💤

👏 👏 Well done, Dr Ventura

01/07/2025

Iodine is essential for thyroid hormone production that supports a baby’s brain development

01/07/2025

"60% of Pregnant Women in Irish Study Show Signs of Iodine Deficiency, UCC Research Finds"

A new study by researchers at University College Cork (UCC), Ireland found that 60% of pregnant women had suboptimal iodine status, highlighting a need for increased nutritional awareness to support maternal and child health.

Iodine is essential for thyroid hormone production, which supports a baby’s brain development during pregnancy. A woman’s iodine requirement increases by 50% during pregnancy, making adequate intake from our diet essential. Our bodies cannot make iodine, so we must get it from our diet.

The research was led by Dr Áine Hennessy from INFANT Research Centre and the Cork Centre for Vitamin D & Nutrition Research at the School of Food and Nutritional Sciences, College of Science, Engineering and Food Science at UCC.

🔎 Read all about these important findings:

60% of pregnant women in a study group in Ireland show signs of iodine deficiency, according to new UCC research. Iodine is essential for baby brain development, and requirements increase by 50% during pregnancy but can’t be produced by our bodies. Even some women who reported taking pregnancy sup...