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Big data saves infants

Research into newborns' immune systems and better vaccines will reduce infant mortality.

Nyhed

Big data saves infants

Research into newborns' immune systems and better vaccines will reduce infant mortality.

The first week of a newborn's life is a time of rapid biological change, with the baby adjusting to life outside the womb and being exposed to new bacteria and viruses. An international research project with the participation of Aalborg University (AAU) and led by Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School in the USA will increase molecular insight into the development of the immune system and the vaccine function in early life to develop even better infant vaccines in the future.

‘Our knowledge of the development of the immune system in the first weeks after birth is extremely limited. The new technique that we have applied to blood samples from a group of newborns provides new knowledge about the early development of the immune system where the foundation is formed. Vaccines are one of the most effective treatments we have for infections, and in the long term, the results could potentially improve vaccines’, says Tue Bjerg Bennike, assistant professor at AAU.

New knowledge can provide better vaccines

Tue Bjerg Bennike's role in the project has been to describe the development of the immune system by looking at which proteins can be found in a single drop of blood. He first performed the experiments in Steen Lab at Boston Children's Hospital and now continues his work in the Laboratory for Medical Mass Spectrometry at AAU.

The research project, which was published Tuesday in Nature Communications, maps molecular changes in the first week of newborn life, including which genes are activated, which proteins are made, and which metabolites change. The project describes the development in the first week of an infant's life and promotes the understanding of newborn health, the development of the immune system, and especially the impact of vaccines on newborns.

‘Most infections occur early in life, and newborns have both the greatest susceptibility and experience the worst outcomes. This work provides a valuable window into health and illness in the first week of life’, says Ofer Levy of Boston Children's Hospital as a co-author of the report.

Small blood test, great knowledge

Previous attempts to collect data on newborns have been limited by the problem of obtaining a sufficient blood sample from a small newborn. The team overcame this challenge with new techniques developed by the University of British Columbia (UBC), among others.

Using sophisticated software and statistics to analyse complex data from less than a quarter of a teaspoon of blood, UBC laboratories found thousands of changes during the first week of a child's life, including changes in gene expression and proteins in the immune system, such as interferons, neutrophils function and complementary pathways.

‘The key to our analysis was to compare each infant's sample from day 1, day 3, and day 7 with their condition on their day of birth. This is how we discovered dramatic molecular changes’, says Tue Bjerg Bennike

Better vaccines for children

The study establishes a baseline for health and illness in early life that can help measure responses to important medical interventions and the impact of factors such as diet, illness, and maternal health. In particular, the researchers focused on the effect of vaccines. Newborns' response to vaccines differs from older children and adults, and that knowledge is crucial to optimise the benefits of vaccines in early life.

‘The discovery of vaccines is a fantastic achievement that saves thousands of lives every year. We are trying to increase our molecular insight into the development of the immune system and the vaccine function in early life, so that we can develop even better infant vaccines in the future’, says Tue Bjerg Bennike.

The study was supported in part by the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases as part of the Human Immunology Project Consortium and by the Precision Vaccines Programme.

The lead authors are Amy Lee, Casey Shannon and Nelly Amenyogbe of UBC; Tue Bennike from Aalborg University; Joann Diray-Arce from Boston Children's and Olubukola ("Bukky") Idoko from LSHTM / MRC-Gambia. The co-authors are Van den Biggelaar, Steen, Tebbutt, Kampmann, Levy and Kollmann.

Contact

Assistant Professor Tue Bjerg Bennike