Studies of umbilical cord find commonalities with adult lung disease

Some 20 to 40 percent of extremely premature infants suffer abnormal lung development leading to bronchopulmonary dysplasia, a chronic lung disease that can cause long-term breathing problems. Little is known about how to predict whether a premature infant will develop BPD in the weeks after birth, much less how to prevent or treat it. Now, gene-chip studies of these tiny babies' umbilical cords provide unexpected, much-needed leads into predicting and treating this debilitating condition.

The study - one of the first uses of gene-chip (microarray) analysis to study diseases of premature newborns -- was led by Isaac Kohane, MD, PhD, director of the Children's Hospital Informatics Program (CHIP) and Jennifer Cohen, MD, a neonatology fellow at Children's Hospital Boston.