Dr. Amy D’Agata receives award to fund infant study

Dr. Amy D’Agata, a USF College of Nursing post-doctoral scholar, has received an award from the Little Giraffe Foundation to collect stress data in preterm infants, who are also participants in Dr. Maureen Groer’s NIH R01 microbiome study. The Little Giraffe foundation was founded by the Santoro family in honor of their extremely premature infant daughter, who at 590 grams did not survive her fight for life.

From the data collected in this study, Dr. D’Agata will investigate the impact of early life in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) on developing gut microbiome. Furthermore, this data will be compared to findings from a preterm infant cohort in Dr. D’Agata’s dissertation study to further expand evidence related to the intensity and chronicity of early life NICU stress exposure.