The Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease has nine (9) faculty members who are actively engaged in research (see Faculty and Fellows Section for full description).  On average, faculty members of the division publish 10-12 papers of their research yearly in peer reviewed journals.

Infectious Disease  has established collaborative research programs with members of the Departments of Microbiology and Immunology in the University and the Baylor Institute for Immunology Research, Dallas, Texas.  The principle goals of these collaborative projects is to delineate the molecular immunobiologic basis for the pathogenesis of certain infectious diseases in pediatrics, to define and control the inflammatory processes involved in bacterial infections such meningitis and pneumonia, and to develop the immunobiologic profiles of children with infectious diseases.  For these and other studies, animal model systems are utilized. 

The above investigations provide an invaluable opportunity to learn the most modern molecular biologic techniques and to apply these to common clinical problems in pediatrics.  For example, we have conducted clinical trials of anti-inflammatory agents in bacterial meningitis and febrile children with asthma, diagnostic studies using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in congenital syphilis and pneumonia and studies of endotoxin concentrations in body fluids of infants and children with meningococcal or Haemophilus meningitis and correlating these values with outcomes.