The project so far has been largely focused on patient enrollment and sample collection. We have developed novel strategies to preserve whole blood samples directly in the hospital, by clinical staff without research training, and with minimal handling and sample sparing methods. This now allow for us to preserve whole blood cells, by direct freezing without any manipulation, providing much more robust datasets that better reflect the in vivo situation of newborn immune systems. Combining this with optimized methods for plasma preservation, by immediate centrifugation after blood collection, we are able to analyze hundreds of plasma proteins, and all white blood cells from as little as 100 microliters of starting material, enabling samples to be analyzed even from the very sickest of preterm children.
In a first analysis we have revealed systems-level development of the newborn immune system in 100 newborn children during their first 100 days of life. This work was published in Cell in August 2018. In this analysis, we described a stereotypic pattern of change, shared by all preterm and term children, driven by microbial interactions on luminal surfaces.
In a second publication, currently in press in Nature Medicine, we have performed a global analysis of maternal IgG antibodies in the same cohort of newborn children. This paper shows that antibody-transfer during pregnancy occurs similarly in preterm and term children and that antibodies transferred as early as week 24 are equally protective against viruses such as RSV as antibodies transferred at full term.
