Syed, Sana
Primary Appointment
Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Pediatrics
Education
- MD, Medicine, Aga Khan University
- MS, Clinical Research, Emory University
Contact Information
Email: ss8xj@hscmail.mcc.virginia.edu
Research Disciplines
Experimental Pathology
Research Interests
Understanding why a subset of children living in in low- and middle-income countries around the world develop growth and vaccine failure
Research Description
Sana Syed's research focuses on understanding why a subset of children living in in low- and middle-income countries around the world develop growth and vaccine failure, an entity known as Environmental Enteric Dysfunction (EED). As a member of the Moore Lab, working along with collaborators at the Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan, her work involves: 1) development of a histopathologic score based on morphometric characteristics of intestinal tissue from these children; 2) understanding differences in key epithelial transporters and binding protein expression among children with EED versus healthy and diseased controls; 3) deriving and validating case definitions for environmental enteropathy for use in interventional studies; 4) estimating associations between non-invasive biomarkers as well as specific enteropathogens with growth and immune outcomes in children with EED; and 5) development of directed nutrient and other interventions for environmental enteropathy in children.