Grant: Operating Grant: Industry-partnered Collaborative Research - Other Partner

Liver disease is the main cause of death in babies and children who depend on intravenous nutrition because their bowel is not adequate to absorb nutrients from food. The most common cause of this so called intestinal failure is short bowel syndrome, when babies are born without part of the bowel or lose bowel length with surgeries needed after birth. Early studies we conducted in piglets in our institution suggested that using a fish based intravenous fat rather then a soy based intravenous fat might improve this liver disease. Soy is the most common intravenous fat used in Canada. Many childrens hospitals around Canada have since started using the fish oil for intestinal failure and other conditions even though we don't fully understand how it works or what the risks might be for babies who depend on fat to grow. We can help provide some answers by going back to our original baby piglet model. It is not possible to undertake some kinds of research studies in sick human babies to answer these questions. We cannot always do studies in sick babies quickly to gain answers, but we can do this with animal studies. Our research group includes frontline clinicians, who care for these babies, as well as senior nutrition scientists, who are motivated to undertake this research to advance and improve how we are currently looking after sick babies with intestinal failure.