{"id":12942,"date":"2019-06-06T11:37:44","date_gmt":"2019-06-06T18:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gwach\/?p=12942"},"modified":"2026-03-31T10:58:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T17:58:55","slug":"r01-mcgrath-aldrovandi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/globalwach\/2019\/06\/06\/r01-mcgrath-aldrovandi\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Christine McGrath co-leads new study on infant HIV, breast milk and gut health"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Congratulations to Principal Investigators, <a href=\"https:\/\/globalhealth.washington.edu\/faculty\/christine-mcgrath\"><strong>Dr. Christine McGrath<\/strong><\/a> (Assistant Professor, Global Health) and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uclahealth.org\/grace-aldrovandi\">Dr. Grace Aldrovandi<\/a><\/strong> (Chief, Division of Infectious Disease at UCLA Mattel Children\u2019s Hospital; Professor, Pediatrics, UCLA Geffen School of Medicine), who received a National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 award for a new study entitled, <strong>\u201cEffects of Human Milk Oligosaccharides and Gut Microbiome on Growth and Morbidity in HIV-Exposed Uninfected Infants.\u201d\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0study team includes investigators from the Department of Global Health, <a href=\"https:\/\/globalhealth.washington.edu\/faculty\/grace-john-stewart\">Drs. Grace John-Stewart<\/a> (Global WACh Director; Professor), <a href=\"https:\/\/globalhealth.washington.edu\/faculty\/donna-denno\">Donna Denno<\/a> (Professor), Judd Walson (Professor), Barbra Richardson (Adjunct Research Professor) and from the Kenya Medical Research Institute, Dr. Benson Singa (Research Scientist; Affiliated Assistant Professor, Global Health).<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Despite the success in global health efforts to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, there is a growing and often overlooked HIV-exposed uninfected (HEU) population with a substantially higher risk of growth faltering, infectious morbidity, and mortality compared to HIV-unexposed uninfected (HUU) infants. The mechanisms responsible for poor growth and susceptibility to infection in HEU infants are unclear, but recent evidence suggests disturbances in the infant gut microbiome is a major cause.<\/p>\n<p>Research shows that breast milk offers many health benefits for infants that extend into adulthood.\u00a0 Some of breast milk\u2019s value lies in human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), which serve as prebiotics and probiotics, supporting the growth of the infant gut microbiome and developing immune systems.\u00a0 An infant\u2019s immune system develops rapidly early in life and good nutrition is critical to that development.\u00a0 Even a small difference in HMO composition could have significant implications for healthy growth and improved health outcomes in HEU infants.<\/p>\n<p>The study will enroll and follow a cohort of HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected women and evaluate the differences in HMO composition and breast milk over the five-year study.\u00a0 The findings will help researchers to understand how breast milk affects the infant gut microbiome and to determine whether HMOs are in fact associated with growth and enteric dysfunction in HEU and HUU infants.\u00a0 The study will provide critical data for the design of interventions to optimize growth and health outcomes in HIV-exposed uninfected children in Africa, a vulnerable and growing population.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Congratulations to Principal Investigators, Dr. Christine McGrath (Assistant Professor, Global Health) and Dr. Grace Aldrovandi (Chief, Division of Infectious Disease at UCLA Mattel Children\u2019s Hospital; Professor, Pediatrics, UCLA Geffen School of Medicine), who received a National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 award for a new study entitled, \u201cEffects of Human Milk Oligosaccharides and Gut Microbiome&#8230;<\/p>\n<div><a class=\"more\" href=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/globalwach\/2019\/06\/06\/r01-mcgrath-aldrovandi\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Dr. Christine McGrath co-leads new study on infant HIV, breast milk and gut health\">Read more<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,86,7,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-awards","category-gut-health-and-child-survival","category-nutrition","category-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/globalwach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/globalwach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/globalwach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/globalwach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/globalwach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12942"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/globalwach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18713,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/globalwach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12942\/revisions\/18713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/globalwach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/globalwach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/globalwach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}