Advancing pediatric health with research technology

Through one-on-one assistance with the Research Software Collaborative Services (RSCS), a U of I research group was able to optimize its project workflow, automate results, and improve data accuracy and analysis, accelerating research to help improve infant formula.

 

Personal curiosity guides the academic and professional pursuits of Dr. Ryan Dilger, professor of animal sciences at the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES). When it comes to his research, he embraces the interdisciplinary both in field and methodology. In a shining example of innovation on campus, Dilger’s laboratory incorporates new and emerging technologies to advance research processes such as data collection and analysis, in order to improve both animal and human health.

“I feed pigs and chickens, that’s my job,” said Dilger. While it may seem an oversimplification, the Nutrition, Health, and Neuroscience Laboratory, which Dilger leads, centers on issues in animal agriculture and nutrition such as exploring ways to convert non-edible products for humans into high quality animal-sourced foods that divert waste from landfills.

More recently, Dilger’s research has shifted to feeding humans, specifically pediatric nutrition. His research goals aim to improve infant formulas by investigating the effects of breast milk and gut health on brain development in pigs. Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) through his partnership with the Beckman Institute, and various cloud technologies through a collaboration with Research Software Collaborative Services (RSCS), Dilger’s lab is redefining technology’s role in advancing human health research.

We are reducing the amount of time from idea to innovation because of the compressed timeline in using the pig as a biomedical model.

Dr. Ryan Dilger Professor of animal sciences, The College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences

Exploring human infant development through pigs

 

Researchers understand that breastmilk is the best nutrition for an infant with regards to overall health and cognitive development. Infant formula fills important nutritional gaps for babies who cannot breastfeed. But the data show that the composition of infant formula can still be improved to better meet the nutritional needs of infants and support the development of a healthy microbiota.

“In particular, we study the microbiome and how it interacts with the host, a connection known as the microbiota-gut-brain axis (MGBA),” explained Dilger. “So, we’re not only feeding the baby, we are providing nutrients to the bacteria that reside in their gastrointestinal tract. Those bacteria have proven benefits when it comes to intestinal immunity and overall health, and we want to know how that influences brain development.”

Pigs have highly comparable brains to humans in terms of growth and development. A pig’s brain is much closer in size to a human brain than other common research subjects, such as mice, which makes it ideal for applications using human clinical MRI scanners. Additionally, a pig matures much more quickly, allowing the effects of any nutritional changes from infancy to adulthood to show up in a six month timeframe, when it would take 15 to 20 years to study the same process in a human. Conducting this sort of research on humans is also a major ethical challenge.

“We are reducing the amount of time from idea to innovation because of the compressed timeline in using the pig as a biomedical model,” said Dilger.

This is not the first time Dilger and his research team have scanned pigs in MRI technology for brain imaging. In fact, he, along with his collaborators Drs. Matt Conrad and Rodney Johnson, began imaging pigs in 2008 and were one of the first teams to do so for brain development purposes.

When he first decided to explore human gut and brain development using pigs, Dilger worked with Brad Sutton, professor in the Department of Bioengineering and technical director of the Biomedical Imaging Center at the Beckman Institute, and Rodney Johnson, professor and head of the Department of Animal Sciences, to develop the Pig Brain Atlas. This updated atlas, published in the Journal of Neuroscience Methods, provides researchers with data that maps out pig brain development with the aim of enhancing neuroscience research. Building an atlas for pig brain development was the first crucial step in understanding what happens in the human brain.

For the current project, Dilger works closely with Dr. Sharon Donovan, one of the foremost researchers in the pediatric nutrition field, and director of the Personalized Nutrition Initiative. While his interest in improving infant formulas came from personal experience as a parent, his research background centers on animal sciences. Donovan’s expertise in pediatric nutrition, specifically the microbiome of the colon and intestinal development, proved the perfect complement for their research goals.

“We’ve met our original objective: we now have a cloud-based approach for conducting quality control checks on MRI data. We can focus on the neuroscience, and we don’t have to worry about the integrity, accuracy, or precision of the data that comes out; we can trust it.”

Dr. Ryan Dilger Professor of animal sciences, The College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences

Using technology to improve processes and speed up research discoveries

 

While Dilger’s experience with research technology spans many years, he understands that there are IT and data science experts who better understand technical capabilities and seeks out those collaborators across campus.

The Research Software Collaborative Services (RSCS) group, hosted by Research IT and NCSA, are professional software developers with particular expertise in creating and supporting software for academic research. Experts are available for collaborations, lasting up to one year, to help researchers fundamentally advance their research.

Through a collaboration with the RSCS group, Dilger’s research team streamlined their pipeline for processing MRI data in the cloud. Using data management technologies like Clowder, they were able to automate tasks that were previously painstakingly done by hand and greatly speed up their results.

When asked about why he thinks the service works, Dilger responded, “Inviting biologists to use RSCS who don’t have the technical background reduces the barrier to using technology to advance and accelerate research.

“We’ve met our original objective: we now have a cloud-based approach for conducting quality control checks on MRI data,” said Dilger. “We can focus on the neuroscience, and we don’t have to worry about the integrity, accuracy, or precision of the data that comes out; we can trust it.”

In addition to appointments with various academic programs including animal and nutritional sciences and the neuroscience program, Dilger is also an affiliate at multiple research institutes such as the Beckman Institute, Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB), the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), AI FARMS, and the Center for Digital Agriculture. If anything, this further highlights his interest in new and emerging technologies, and his dedication to improving research processes using tech.

“We train students to be interdisciplinary scientists,” explained Dilger. “This was central to my own graduate education and we need to be approaching these problems with a much broader view given current and future challenges. We have a diverse lab in terms of where individuals came from, the experiences that they've had, and how they apply that expertise in scenarios involving nutrition, immunology, neuroscience, and computer science - it all comes together in one place.”

 

Research Software Collaborative Services is a collaboration between Research IT at Technology Services and NCSA. Learn more about RSCS and sign up for a free one-on-one or group consultation.

Updated on March 29, 2022

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