RESE ARCH
article, we sought to provide an understanding of the role of CT so that researchers can develop new and better imaging technologies for COVID-19.” An interdisciplinary approach was important for this study. Liu, along with colleagues Molly Wong, Ph.D., and Yuhua Li, Ph.D., paired their imaging expertise with OU Health radiologist Theresa Thai, M.D., who provided medical knowledge and experience reading CTs. Their study shows the general patterns of COVID-19 infection. Early hallmarks of the disease are the development of ground-glass opacities, which are hazy shapes in otherwise healthy lungs, Thai said. Middle stages of the infection are characterized by “crazy paving,” a continued spread of densities that mimic disorganized paving stones, and later stages see an increased consolidation of those patterns. Although these CT findings can be found in other lung conditions, studies of COVID-19 generally concur that the disease follows this trajectory. “For physicians, CT scans can help determine which patients need to be hospitalized as opposed to those who can stay at home and recuperate,” Thai said. “And among patients who are hospitalized, CT helps determine which need to be in the ICU as opposed to a regular hospital floor.” The OU study will also serve as a road map for medical imaging researchers across the world as they use their expertise to improve imaging technology for patients with COVID-19. The next frontier is artificial intelligence, in which the computer identifies areas of concern that the radiologist can further examine and confirm, Thai said. “The potential for pattern recognition in imaging is exciting,” Thai said. “The goal is for the computer to highlight suspicious areas so that radiologists can spend their time on those areas as opposed to findings that are more incidental.” Liu’s laboratory focuses on cancer imaging, but in response to OU’s call for research on COVID-19, he and his colleagues are closely monitoring the disease to see if they can further contribute through their expertise in engineering sciences. Liu said interdisciplinary research is a core component of the university’s research programs. “Interdisciplinary collaborations are important to make advances in healthcare,” Liu said. “As engineers in medical imaging, we can develop new technologies, but until we work closely with clinicians, talking with them and understanding their needs, those instruments will otherwise be useless tools. However, as we have close collaborations between engineering and clinical services, those tools can become useful to clinical practice and can save lives.” Thai emphasizes the same benefit of partnerships that move discoveries from the “research bench to the patient bedside.” “We are working toward the same outcome, just from different vantage points,” Thai said. “As physicians, we can’t do what we do without researchers developing their technologies, and they need our perspective about where they should focus their research so that it benefits patients. We have the same overall goal of helping patients.”
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Jed Friedman, Ph.D., is an active researcher and director of Harold Hamm Diabetes Center.
Harold Hamm Diabetes Center Researchers Earn Grant to Study Liver Disease in Children More than 30% of children who are obese will eventually be diagnosed with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, or NAFLD, a silently progressing condition that sometimes isn’t discovered until a child’s liver is stiffened with fibrosis. Children born to obese mothers face a higher risk of developing NAFLD, but the exact reasons why remain unknown. Three researchers at OU Health Harold Hamm Diabetes Center have been awarded a $2.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate the role of the microbiome – the millions of bacteria in a person’s gut – and how the microbes passed from mother to child contribute to the onset of NAFLD. The researchers are also testing a nutritional compound for its potential to counter negative changes in the microbiome, thereby lowering the risk for NAFLD. Babies receive their first microbes from their mothers as they travel through the birth canal, breast feed, and have skin-to-skin contact. The microbiome plays a major role in how the immune system develops, beginning soon after birth. By age 3, a child’s microbiome is established, but things that disrupt its development in the first 1,000 days can alter the infant’s early immune system with significant consequences in later life. A primary suspect in that disruption is what the mother eats during pregnancy.
[ Fa l l / Wi n t e r 2 0 2 0 ]
