Research

Monica Alba-Sandoval, MD

Dr. Alba’s major interest is in medical simulation. She has developed a comprehensive three- year simulation-based curriculum for the pediatric residents. Dr. Alba has set up a multidisciplinary team training in the PICU and wards through the hospital with emphasis in teamwork.

Amanda Alladin, MD

Dr. Alladin’s research interests included evaluation and management of delirium in the PICU. She is striving to generate research in palliative care related topics, death and dying and education and training. She has tackled curriculum develop for critical care trainees with specific focus upon delivering bad news, resiliency and communication.

G. Patricia Cantwell, MD

Dr. Cantwell serves as Medical Director of the Pediatric Palliative Medicine Team, PediPals. Her interests involve improving pain and symptom management, enhancing consistent care of children facing complex, life-threatening illnesses, staff education in palliative medicine and continually striving to improve quality of life experiences.

Asumthia Jeyapalan, DO

Dr. Jeyapalan has participated in numerous multicenter studies via PALISI (Pediatric Acute Lung Injury and Sepsis Investigators) including studies on Pediatric Acute Respiratory Distress, Ventilator Associated Infections, Therapeutic modalities in the care of septic patients, critical care of pediatric transplant patients. Dr. Jeyapalan also conducts research on palliative care and death and dying in collaboration with Drs. Cantwell and Alladin. Dr. Jeyapalan has developed the mock code program in pediatrics in situ and is interested in quality and safety outcomes. She holds a six sigma green belt.

Michael A. Nares, MD

Dr. Nares’ research interests are varied. He has an interest in mechanisms of inflammation and sepsis with a focus on the impact of plasma exchange on the sepsis trajectory. He also has an interest in vascular access and alternatives to traditional central venous access for high risk patients requiring solid organ transplantation, or dialytic therapies. Finally, he is active in determining the impact of fluid volume status on the outcomes of liver transplantation and quality metrics.

Brent J Pfeiffer, MD, PhD

Dr Pfeiffer’s research interests are in the field of immunology, transplantation medicine, and biostatistics. Specifically, Dr Pfeiffer research is the application of a novel therapy targeting a specific lymphocyte population call a regulatory T lymphocyte, which is critical in immune homeostasis and transplantation medicine. He provides statistical analysis support of pediatric resident and fellow research projects.

Juan Pablo Solano, MD

Dr Solano’s interest is in the field of traumatic injury to the central nervous system. He is the medical director of the pediatric mild TBI program where he manages children and adolescents with mTBI/concussion. He studies clinical predictors of recovery after concussion in children and adolescents. He also has extensive experience in translational models of traumatic brain and spinal cord injury (SCI). He is involved in multidisciplinary research with scientists at UM’s Miami Project to Cure Paralysis studying physiologic changes and medical interventions aimed at understanding the pathophysiology of SCI and improving patients’ outcomes after SCI.

• Dr. Pfeiffer Lab

Clinical studies include

• Procedural sedation data submission to the Pediatric Sedation Research Consortium
• Different sedation needs of pediatric solid organ transplant recipients
• Multi-institutional study: Death in the PICU/NICU: Parent and Family Functioning
• Modes of Death in the PICU
• PICFlu study garnering information from patients with respiratory failure (influenza) who were previously healthy
• Influenza vaccine effectiveness in high risk children
• RESTORE: Sedation in children with respiratory failure
• INVOS in liver transplantation

Ongoing basic science endeavors in the Critical Care Laboratory at the Batchelor Children’s Research Institute include

• Introduction of a new pediatric model of spinal cord injury in piglets
• Development of a new pediatric model of traumatic brain injury in piglets
• Testing efficacy of potential treatments for adult SCI in collaboration with the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis.
• Expanding conor regulatory T lymphocyte to reduce graft-versus-host disease in a mouse hematopoietic stem cell transplant model assessing changes to the regulatory T lymphocyte T cell Receptor diversity
• A novel strategy for targeted lymphocyte subpopulation manipulations applied in a clinically relevant model of solid organ transplantation using murine skin allografts.