Chanarin-Dorfman Syndrome

We are attempting to improve the cerebral monitoring of extremely low gestational age (ELGA) infants, such that in the future, real-time monitoring will be possible, to aid clinicians in their management of these infants. We wish to establish a new NIRS device, diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS), as a safe, noninvasive and informative bedside tool for assessing and monitoring brain health in ELGA infants during the first few days of life. It is hoped that this method will provide detailed information on changes in oxygen consumption and metabolism, and cerebral perfusion. This technique will have wide applicability, but for this research study we wish to focus on the effect of blood flow instabilities, intermittent hypotension and hypoxic episodes, pressure passive CBF periods, and hypoperfusion on the preterm brain during the first days of life, and their relationship with incidence of intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH). We aim to recruit 100 premature infants to obtain data to:
Test the feasibility of NIRS-DCS to monitor cerebral activity, perfusion and oxygen consumption in extremely premature infants during the first week of life.
To assess if these baseline values are impacted by intermittent hypoxic episodes.
To assess if cerebral blood flow disturbances correlate with incidence of intraventricular hemorrhage.
Correlate the NIRS-DCS findings with clinical outcome at hospital discharge.

This research is to better understand the functional impairments of Dendritic cells (DCs) in chronic HBV infection. Aim is to determine if the virus is able to bind to the C-type lectin receptor (CLRs) of DCs to modulate their functions, also, to define the role of viral components and the molecular mechanisms of DCs modulation by HBV. This project should provide a better understanding of the mechanisms by which the immune response is altered by HBV and the immunological control of the infection, and thus propose new immunotherapeutic strategies based on the restoration of DC functions by releasing of virally-induced inhibitions, compromising the infection chronicity

This study aims to characterize the pathophysiological mechanisms of 21 different metabolic myopathies. The study will focus on exercise capacity and the metabolic derangement during exercise.