Little progress has been made to date towards the prevention of treatment of BPD. Even exogenous surfactant therapy, which acutely causes significant reductions in oxygen requirements and mortality from RDS, has had little impact on the 70-90% incidence of BPD in newborn survivors with birthweights of <1000 grams. The overall goal of this cooperative research program is to develop a multi-institutional research effort to address the mechanisms of postnatal lung pathobiology that lead to chronic lung disease and to provide a unique resource center of prematurely delivered baboons with induced bronchopulmonary dysplasia to outstanding investigators from multiple institutions dedicated to sharing collaborative protocols and tissue specimens. The baboon models of BPD are unique in the world; they develop disease that is very similar, if not identical, to the human disease but in a controlled environment. Unlike human clinical studies, gestational age is tightly controlled and results are not confounded by variable causes of premature delivery. The Southwest Biomedical Research Foundation has approximately 2700 baboons, the breeding colony and the scientific personnel to oversee all aspects of the proposed BPD Resource Core.
The specific aims of the BPD Resource Core are: 1) To breed baboons to produce pregnancies of known gestational ages, and to deliver by Caesarian section 100 timed pregnancies per year, to provide the premature infants that will be shared by multiple investigators. 2) To maintain these premature infant baboons in a neonatal intensive care environment for periods of up to 14 days, utilizing several well-defined treatment protocols. Long-term outcomes will be examined in 33-35 week survivors, the baboon equivalent of a 2 year old human infant in whom alveolarization should be complete. 3) To provide tissue specimens taken at the time of delivery, during the animal's clinical course, and at necropsy in as ideal and timely a manner as possible, and tailored to each investigator's needs. 4) To provide a Data Management Core for animal information retrieval.
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