Esther Speer, MD

Dr. Speer’s Laboratory in the Division of Neonatology of Stony Brook Children’s Hospital focuses on the immunopathology of neonatal sepsis and inflammation and the development of adjunctive anti-inflammatory pharmacological therapies that can improve survival and outcome of infected newborns. The Lab especially aims to identify ways to control the effects of central nervous system inflammation on the developing neonatal brain. Current active projects are: Human in vitro cord blood model for the screening and study of mechanisms of action of candidate adjunctive anti-inflammatory pharmacological agents for newborn sepsis and the identification of novel synergistic combinations of anti-inflammatory drug therapies. Neonatal bacterial sepsis murine models for pre-clinical testing of adjunctive anti-inflammatory therapies. These models are particularly aimed to investigate the acute and delayed effects of newborn infections and of anti-inflammatory treatments on neurodevelopmental outcome. The lab uses the following special techniques: In vitro drug screening methods for anti-inflammatory drug responses based on whole blood, isolated immune cells, and tissues; Flow cytometry, multiplex immunoassays, Western blotting, qRT PCR, microbiological assays, microarray, and proteomics; In vitro and in vivo use of neonatal live pathogenic microorganisms; Conventional and confocal microscopy; Optical imaging of bacterial infections in newborn rodents; Nucleotide analogues to study the effects of murine neonatal neuroinflammation on neurogenesis and developmental outcome.