Final Report Summary - BRADIMO (Brain Diagnostics and Monitoring in early neonatal period (BraDiMo))
Preterm birth affects one out of ten newborns worldwide, and it is always associated with a risk of life long disabilities. The payload at EU level from medical conditions associated with acute threat to preterm or other ill newborn brains rises upto billions of euros each year. Hence, all measures taken to protect or monitor newborn brain in the neonatal intensive care units carries a promise of significant societal and individual benefits.
Current practice in the field is far from optimal. The aim of BraDiMo project is to support career development of Adj Prof, Dr. Sampsa Vanhatalo (Helsinki University Hospital, Finland) by funding a two year visit to the largest neonatal research center in Australia (Perinatal Research Center, PRC, prof. Paul Colditz, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia), as well as his return to Helsinki University Hospital to implement newly acquired skills.
The objectives of Vanhatalo’s fellowship in Brisbane and in Helsinki consist of four areas: i) to develop skills in relevant research methodology, ii) to learn international research project development in neonatal studies, iii) to gain expertise in research commercialization, as well as iv) to get more experience in teaching, presentation and media relations. The success of BraDiMo is best measured from the outputs and new directions that have taken place during the return phase, which ended in 9/2014.
During the time in Brisbane, Vanhatalo participated in large animal research with preterm and term piglet models, the former of which is unique development in Brisbane. Additional work with biomedical engineering group in PRC using advanced multichannel time series analyses of EEG signals lead to characterization of novel electric resting state networks in the preterm and term brain human brain. Another project with this engineering group has yielded empiric characterization of spatial frequencies and volume conduction effects in the neonatal EEG that are needed for the ongoing attemps to develop realistic head models for source localization. Development of EEG-fMRI coregistration for neonates was advanced by performing the first of its kind phantom studies with real size neonatal phantoms, which paves the way for later recording of real human babies.
An outstanding extension to the originally planned work has been Vanhatalo’s collaboration with prof Breakspear’s research group in Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR). This work has developed and employed fully novel, advanced mathematical concepts of scale free system behavior to data from asphyxic and preterm newborns, and revealed novel markers to be used in the early diagnostics of neonates in the neonatal intensive care unit. This work has also lead to co-supervisorship in a PhD project of Mr. Kartik Iyer, and the PhD has now completed successfully: This work has already resulted in to five high class publications with Vanhatalo, in addition to learning a cutting edge new direction of computational neuroscience signal analysis. This collaboration is awaited to continue for the years to come, and it will likely result in several other breakthroughs, such as the first day biomarkers of preterm brain extracted from the routinely collected EEG signal.
Formal training has consisted of participation in the national program aimed to raise Future Research Leaders (), which is a comprehensive training program developed among eight largest Australian universities, and it aims to provide “best practice training in financial management, grant administration, business planning, commercialisation and technology transfer, corporate governance, financial reporting, acquittal and audit requirements to staff in Go8 universities who are identified as future research leaders.” Australian academic environment has a strong and long experience in research commercialization, and Vanhatalo participated in several nationwide programs on bridging academic and industrial sectors, as well as on IP protection. Practical expertise was gained via collaborations with R&D of several medical manufacturers (CareFusion/USA, ANT/Netherlands, eemagine/Germany), as well as preliminary attempts to protect IP of some novel innovations.
Until the end of BraDiMo, the novel collaborative applications have resulted in i) a collaborative ARC grant with prof David Walker from Monash University, ii) collaborative NHMRC grant with Dr. Trace Bjorkman from Univ.Queensland iii) position in the scientific advisory board in an engineering Marie Curie training network project (project ANDREA, FP7). In addition, Vanhatalo has partnered in three multicenter EU/FP7 applications (Marie Curie ITN (ELSE-Net), EraNet (MAFFEN), and FP7-HEALTH-2013-INNOVATION (ALBINO), one bilateral call between Finland and Japan (ADEBA; Finnish Academy and Japan Science and Technology Agency, www.jst.go.jp) as well as ERC grant call in 2013. As planned before, S.V. has also continued as a WP leader in the EU funded study NEMO, which will last until 3/2015.
These experiences have been very effective in teaching the way how pan-European and research consortia outside of Europe are organized, managed and coordinated.
Experience in research funding was obtained via direct partnering with PRC funding procedures in Brisbane, and Vanhatalo is also actively working in the University fund raising campaing in University of Helsinki. Expertise in research commercialization was attained by participation in several workshops organized by UniQuest in the University of Queensland. In addition, during BraDiMo years, Vanhatalo has gone through several inspection procedures aimed to probe commercialization potential of the novel innovations in the sensor technology and signal analysis domain. These have also included preliminary discussions with the R&D personal of main commercial players in Europe and USA. This experience has strongly shaped the way how Vanhatalo will pursue studies in the future, in order to bring maximal clinical benefit via commercialization pathways.
The last year of BraDiMo has been the most successful of Vanhatalo’s whole career in multiple directions. First, as already planned in the initial BraDiMo application, Vanhatalo has managed to set up Finland’s first ever clinical research center for BAby Brain Activity (www.babacenter.fi). This center is now running actively, it is directly supported by the Children’s Hospital of Helsinki University Central Hospital, and it has already gained international reputation in the area. Most importantly, BABA center has already seen four extended visits by international PhD students who come from other laboratories to gain expertise in neonatal EEG signal analysis. This shows that Vanhatalo and his research center has already assumed a prominent position in the field, as was envisioned in the far-reaching aims of BraDiMo.
Second, Vanhatalo was successful in obtaining a competitive 3yrs research fellowship from the Finnish Academy, which guarantees his personal research time to develop his research activities.
Third, a larger number of research projects initiated during early phases of BraDiMo have come to fruition, and the last year has already seen fourteen publications come out in high ranking neuroscience journal. Another 10-15 papers has been or will be submitted to comparable high profile journals in the coming year.
In conclusion, BraDiMo provided Vanhatalo with an outstanding opportunity to build frontier level skillset that is mandatory in establishing international leadership on baby brain studies in Helsinki. The impact of this research fleshes out not only in the academic excellence, but also in introducing novel paradigms for medical treatment of sick neonates, in promoting the field of neonatal neurophysiology research in Finland and Europe, as well as in promoting European medical industry to build applications for worldwide markets in the field.
Current practice in the field is far from optimal. The aim of BraDiMo project is to support career development of Adj Prof, Dr. Sampsa Vanhatalo (Helsinki University Hospital, Finland) by funding a two year visit to the largest neonatal research center in Australia (Perinatal Research Center, PRC, prof. Paul Colditz, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia), as well as his return to Helsinki University Hospital to implement newly acquired skills.
The objectives of Vanhatalo’s fellowship in Brisbane and in Helsinki consist of four areas: i) to develop skills in relevant research methodology, ii) to learn international research project development in neonatal studies, iii) to gain expertise in research commercialization, as well as iv) to get more experience in teaching, presentation and media relations. The success of BraDiMo is best measured from the outputs and new directions that have taken place during the return phase, which ended in 9/2014.
During the time in Brisbane, Vanhatalo participated in large animal research with preterm and term piglet models, the former of which is unique development in Brisbane. Additional work with biomedical engineering group in PRC using advanced multichannel time series analyses of EEG signals lead to characterization of novel electric resting state networks in the preterm and term brain human brain. Another project with this engineering group has yielded empiric characterization of spatial frequencies and volume conduction effects in the neonatal EEG that are needed for the ongoing attemps to develop realistic head models for source localization. Development of EEG-fMRI coregistration for neonates was advanced by performing the first of its kind phantom studies with real size neonatal phantoms, which paves the way for later recording of real human babies.
An outstanding extension to the originally planned work has been Vanhatalo’s collaboration with prof Breakspear’s research group in Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR). This work has developed and employed fully novel, advanced mathematical concepts of scale free system behavior to data from asphyxic and preterm newborns, and revealed novel markers to be used in the early diagnostics of neonates in the neonatal intensive care unit. This work has also lead to co-supervisorship in a PhD project of Mr. Kartik Iyer, and the PhD has now completed successfully: This work has already resulted in to five high class publications with Vanhatalo, in addition to learning a cutting edge new direction of computational neuroscience signal analysis. This collaboration is awaited to continue for the years to come, and it will likely result in several other breakthroughs, such as the first day biomarkers of preterm brain extracted from the routinely collected EEG signal.
Formal training has consisted of participation in the national program aimed to raise Future Research Leaders (
Until the end of BraDiMo, the novel collaborative applications have resulted in i) a collaborative ARC grant with prof David Walker from Monash University, ii) collaborative NHMRC grant with Dr. Trace Bjorkman from Univ.Queensland iii) position in the scientific advisory board in an engineering Marie Curie training network project (project ANDREA, FP7). In addition, Vanhatalo has partnered in three multicenter EU/FP7 applications (Marie Curie ITN (ELSE-Net), EraNet (MAFFEN), and FP7-HEALTH-2013-INNOVATION (ALBINO), one bilateral call between Finland and Japan (ADEBA; Finnish Academy and Japan Science and Technology Agency, www.jst.go.jp) as well as ERC grant call in 2013. As planned before, S.V. has also continued as a WP leader in the EU funded study NEMO, which will last until 3/2015.
These experiences have been very effective in teaching the way how pan-European and research consortia outside of Europe are organized, managed and coordinated.
Experience in research funding was obtained via direct partnering with PRC funding procedures in Brisbane, and Vanhatalo is also actively working in the University fund raising campaing in University of Helsinki. Expertise in research commercialization was attained by participation in several workshops organized by UniQuest in the University of Queensland. In addition, during BraDiMo years, Vanhatalo has gone through several inspection procedures aimed to probe commercialization potential of the novel innovations in the sensor technology and signal analysis domain. These have also included preliminary discussions with the R&D personal of main commercial players in Europe and USA. This experience has strongly shaped the way how Vanhatalo will pursue studies in the future, in order to bring maximal clinical benefit via commercialization pathways.
The last year of BraDiMo has been the most successful of Vanhatalo’s whole career in multiple directions. First, as already planned in the initial BraDiMo application, Vanhatalo has managed to set up Finland’s first ever clinical research center for BAby Brain Activity (www.babacenter.fi). This center is now running actively, it is directly supported by the Children’s Hospital of Helsinki University Central Hospital, and it has already gained international reputation in the area. Most importantly, BABA center has already seen four extended visits by international PhD students who come from other laboratories to gain expertise in neonatal EEG signal analysis. This shows that Vanhatalo and his research center has already assumed a prominent position in the field, as was envisioned in the far-reaching aims of BraDiMo.
Second, Vanhatalo was successful in obtaining a competitive 3yrs research fellowship from the Finnish Academy, which guarantees his personal research time to develop his research activities.
Third, a larger number of research projects initiated during early phases of BraDiMo have come to fruition, and the last year has already seen fourteen publications come out in high ranking neuroscience journal. Another 10-15 papers has been or will be submitted to comparable high profile journals in the coming year.
In conclusion, BraDiMo provided Vanhatalo with an outstanding opportunity to build frontier level skillset that is mandatory in establishing international leadership on baby brain studies in Helsinki. The impact of this research fleshes out not only in the academic excellence, but also in introducing novel paradigms for medical treatment of sick neonates, in promoting the field of neonatal neurophysiology research in Finland and Europe, as well as in promoting European medical industry to build applications for worldwide markets in the field.