FNNDSC Weekly Newsletter - Week 32
Upcoming Events January 4th, 12:00 - 1:00 PM: Newborn Medicine Grand Rounds | Brooke Krbec, DO, Early Mobility in the NICU to Optimize Quality of Life
January 6th, 10:00 - 11:00 AM: FNNDSC Bi-Weekly Lecture Series with Dr. Fabrizio Taffoni January 6th: Deadline for Online Course - Funding Your Research, Non-NIH Government Agencies
January 8th 12:00 - 1:00 PM: Newborn Medicine Research Seminar Series
January 20th: Deadline for Funding Your Research - Foundations and Philanthropy Various Dates: Newborn Brain Society Fetal Neurology Webinar Series Helpful Links ▴ Research Announcements & News ▴ Funding Opportunities ▴ Staff Resources - Covid-19
▴ Office of Sponsored Programs Updates
FNNDSC Lecture Series with Guest Speaker: Fabrizio Taffoni, PhD
Date/Time: Wednesday, January 6th 10:00 - 11:00 AM
Presenter: Fabrizio Taffoni, PhD
Abstract:
Movement represents one of the earliest abilities that can be evaluated in infants. Though movement newborns start to explore the environment surrounding them, already in the mother’s womb. Recent trends in developmental psychology, strongly support a dynamic view of motor development in which the reaching of motor milestones is the results of coevolution of both a software part, represented by the motor control skills, as of a hardware part, represented by the body. The two modules influence each other. If it seems quite obvious that body’s structures could be considered as a sort of enabling technology for developing and refining motor skills, it is also extremely important to consider the training and the assessment of motor functions in order to promote infant development. In this framework of research, technologies and methods to measure movement in non-structured environments represent two fundamental features. The talk will present different technologies and methods developed in the last 10 years from the UCBM team to address this issue in infants and children.
Biography:
Dr. Taffoni obtained his Master Degree in Biomedical Engineering cum laude at the Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Italy in 2005. At UCBM he also achieved a PhD in Biomedical Engineering in 2009. Since then, he has continued his research as a Post-Doc fellow at the Laboratory of Biomedical Robotics and Biomicrosystems of the Engineering Department of the Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, working in the field of mechatronics. He develops new tools and methods to study motor controls in children and newborns, and thus indirectly assesses their neural development. In 2017, he has been invited to join the Telematics Services Engineering Research Group of Universidad de Alcalá, Spain as foreign research expert of mechatronic systems for human behavioral analysis. Since 2018, he serves as Tenure Track Assistant Professor at Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma within the CREO Lab - Advanced Robotics and Human Centred Technologies.
During his academic career, he has worked in biomedical engineering, developmental neuroscience, and developmental and cognitive psychology. These experiences have allowed him to develop a high interdisciplinary background and to reach a proven record of accomplished and productive national and international research projects, which have led to numerous articles in international research journals and conferences.
Zoom meeting information:
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Last Week's FNNDSC Project Updates
NIRS Team
· The NIRS clinical team had a busy week! The team enrolled new subjects into the IVH study and performed multiple measurements in the NICU with them. They also had a new subject and were able to successfully perform NIRS measurements in the OR during their bilateral pial synangiosis.
NIRS Engineering Team
· The NIRS engineering team continues to work diligently to ship the first of two device-related shipments to Uganda for its partnership with the CURE Children’s Hospital of Uganda. The team has also recently started new development work aimed to drastically improve signal quality among older patients, which they hope to roll out within the first few weeks of the new year.
Clinical Data and Medical Research
· Lana Vasung finished her first batch of preliminary group fetal MRI analyses for a planned grant submission in February.
On-site Administrative Support This Week
Gauravi will be onsite this week on Monday, January 4th.
Grokker
Looking to refresh and restart 2021? With thousands of videos focused on fitness, sleep, finance, nutrition, etc, you can find a program that fits your goals. Grokker is free for all eligible Boston Children's Hospital staff, affiliated Foundations and dependents.
Donate Blood
Boston Children's Blood Donor Center is experiencing critically low levels of platelets for our patients. Click here to learn more or to schedule an appointment to donate.
Have an idea for future newsletters? Email Gauravi.prabhu@childrens.harvard.edu