At the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center in Tucson, Arizona, researchers are focusing on a gastrointestinal disease affecting approximately 9,000 premature babies each year in the United States. Of those babies affected, about 40% die.

Gilbert High School graduate Kelly Arganbright is working with a research team headed by Dr. Bohuslav Dvorak, Department of Pediatrics to prevent these deaths. The disease is known as Necrotizing Enterocolitis, or simply, NEC. Dr. Dvorak, began researching NEC in 2000 when the urgency of the disease became apparent. There is currently no cure for NEC. The team is researching methods of preventing this impendent and threatening disease by replicating the disease in an experimental model.

Risk factors for development of human NEC consist of prematurity and infant formula feeding in substitution of maternal milk. However, since the exact cause of NEC is currently unknown, it cannot be studied in human babies. Currently, the best proposed model for development of experimental NEC for research purposes is in rodents. This model can integrate rodent prematurity as well as formula feeding, making the risk factors analogous to human NEC. The model is easily replicable and provides valuable information that cannot be obtained from human babies, but can be directly related.

With funding from NIH Institute of Children's Health and Development, Dr. Dvorak and his team are continuing research of methods to prevent NEC.

A typical study looks something like this: On the first day of the study, C-Section takes neonatal rats pre-term. Lab manager Lida Khailova, MS and undergraduate Kelly Arganbright are responsible for ensuring the rat pups are cleaned of their amniotic fluid, cut from the umbilical cord, and breathing properly before they can be used for the remainder of the study.

Throughout the next few days, the rat pups are under extremely close observation and care. The pups are fed with specialized feeding tubes numerous times a day. Ms. Arganbright, who is a junior studying chemistry at the University of Arizona, finds the feeding process to be the most laborious. "I come in at all hours of the night and early morning to individually feed each rat pup.

Rodents have digestive systems very similar to humans, therefore the information collected is pertinent to understanding how the disease works in premature babies. With each and every study, more results are investigated, new hypotheses are formed, and conclusions can be reached.

"I hope we can keep learning more about this disease so it can become entirely preventable. It is rewarding and so amazing to be part of a lab that is working to achieve such great results for such a great cause."

Kelly's work is funded in part by a grant from HHMI (52005889).

Kelly Arganbright, URBPer in Dr. Bohuslav Dvorak's lab, Pediatrics