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Alexander Larcombe BScEnv (Hons) PhD Honorary Research Fellow Honorary Research Fellow Associate Professor Alexander Larcombe began work at The Kids
Burkholderia cepacia complex is a cause of serious lung infections in people with cystic fibrosis, exhibiting extremely high levels of antimicrobial resistance. These infections are difficult to treat and are associated with high morbidity and mortality.
The complex arborization of the feto-placental vasculature is crucial for optimal fetal nutrition, waste exchange and ultimately, development. Ethical and experimental limitations constrain research into the human placenta, hence experimental animal models such as mice and rats, are crucial to understand placental function. It is unclear how well the mouse and rat feto-placental vascular structure emulates human. Moreover, the implications of differences in vascular structure, especially in arborization, for placental function remain unclear.
It is essential to embed patient and public perspectives into every stage of the research journey, including setting the future research agenda. The substantial gaps in our understanding of prematurity-associated lung disease presented a timely opportunity to determine the community's research priorities.
Multiple breath washout is a lung function test based on tidal breathing that assesses lung volume and ventilation distribution. The aim of this analysis was to use the Global Lung Function Initiative methodology to develop all-age reference equations for the multiple breath washout indices lung clearance index and functional residual capacity.
From the results of well-performed population health studies, we now have excellent data demonstrating that deficits in adult lung function may be present early in life, possibly as a result of developmental disorders, incurring a lifelong risk of obstructive airway diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a complex disorder with a high degree of interindividual variability. Gastrointestinal dysfunction is common in patients with COPD and has been proposed to influence the clinical progression of the disease. Using the presence of bile acid(s) (BA) in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid as a marker of gastric aspiration, we evaluated the relationships between BAs, clinical outcomes and bacterial lung colonisation.
Nasal epithelial cells from young adults with a history of very preterm birth show delayed closure following scratch-wounding. Repair correlated with lung function, suggesting epithelial barrier integrity may play a role in preterm-associated lung disease.
The nasal epithelium is the primary point of contact for inhaled respiratory viruses such as rhinovirus, respiratory syncytial virus, influenza, and coronavirus, among others. In order to establish infection, these viruses must engage their respective receptors located on host epithelial cells and begin replication.
Western societal norms have long been constrained by binary and exclusionary perspectives on matters such as infertility, contraception, sexual health, sexuality, and gender. These viewpoints have shaped research and knowledge frameworks for decades and led to an inaccurate and incomplete reproductive biology curriculum. To combat these deficiencies in reproductive systems-related education, our teaching team undertook a gradual transformation of unit content from 2018 to 2023, aiming to better reflect real diversity in human reproductive biology.