On February 28th, our lab participated in USF Health Research Day. Members, Linh, Melissa, and Rachel presented their research posters as part of the "largest celebration of health sciences research collaboration across all four USF Health colleges".
Melissa Olsen, a recent graduate of USF’s college of arts and sciences, won the award for undergraduate student research in clinical & translational science for her poster Fecal Lactoferrin and Fecal Calprotectin Levels in Preterm Infants. Her study aimed to determine whether lactoferrin, a known anti-inflammatory and protective protein, correlates with calprotectin, a marker of intestinal inflammation.
Rachel Nelson, a medical student at USF’s Morsani college of Medicine, presented her work with Dr. Ho’s clinical practice in her poster The Factors Associated with Auditory Neural Maturation in Preterm Infants. In her study, Rachel analyzed 141 infants for correlations between auditory myelination and processing and prematurity and inflammatory comorbidities.
Linh Hoang, an undergraduate in the college of arts and sciences, presented her project The Predictors of One-Month Iron Storage in Preterm infants. Linh’s study aimed to identify the clinical factors associated with serum ferritin at one month of life in preterm infants. She found that the number of blood transfusions a patient receives is the strongest predictor of ferritin levels during the first month of life, outweighing weight gain, birth weight and gestational age.