Our Impact
One of the nation's leading centers for neonatal-perinatal care, teaching, and research, UT Southwestern's Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine provides exceptional care for the most critically ill patients.
We also take pride in training outstanding physicians and scientists. As we push for discoveries in our medical specialty, the Division remains focused on improved outcomes for tomorrow's patients.
2024 Impact
- By the Numbers
By the Numbers
Faculty
- 65 faculty
Clinical
- 5 clinical sites
- 73,410 inpatient encounters
- 989 outpatient encounters
Education
- 15 fellows
Research
- 10 active awards
- 2 public/federal (K awards)
- $4,615,771 total
funding from grants (FY25) - 23 active clinical trials
- $847,171 revenue
from clinical trials
(FY25) - 103 publications
- 5,785 citations
- Honors and Awards
Honors and Awards
U.S. News and World Report
- Ranked No. 17 nationwide in 2024-2025
Texas Super Doctors - Texas Monthly
- Chelsea Anderson (Rising Star)
- Jesse Banales (Rising Star)
- Chelseá Johnson (Rising Star)
- Kelly Mazzarella (Rising Star)
- Eric Ortigoza (Rising Star)
- Christine Pazandak (Rising Star)
- Jack Seidel (Super Doctor)
- Sushmita Yallapragada (Rising Star)
- Top Conference Presentation Locations
Top Conference Presentation Locations
- Pediatric Academic Societies -Society for Pediatric Research, Toronto, Canada, May 2024
- The 15th International Newborn Brain Conference on Brain Monitoring Neuroprotection, Cork, Ireland, March 2024
- Top Publications
Top Publications
- Chen WW, Rodrigues TA, Wendscheck D, Pedrosa AG, Yang C, Francisco T, Möcklinghoff T, Zografakis A, Nunes-Silva B, Avraham RE, Silva AR, Ferreira MJ, Das H, Bender J, Oeljeklaus S, Sondhi V, Schuldiner M, Zalckvar E, Hofmann K, Waterham HR , DeBerardinis RJ, Azevedo JE, & Warscheid B. PEX39 facilitates the peroxisomal import of PTS2 proteins. 2024 bioRxiv 591961. Nature Cell Biology in press.
- Chalak LF, Bitar L, Kota S. Perinatal Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy Among a Large Public Hospital Population. JAMA Netw Open. Nov 4 2024;7(11):e2444448. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.44448
- Kota S, Kang S, Liu YL, Chalak L. Prognostic value of quantitative EEG in early hours of life for neonatal encephalopathy and neurodevelopmental outcomes. Pediatr Res. Aug 2024;96(3):685-694. doi:10.1038/s41390-024-03255-8
- Alayli Y, Brown LS, Leon R, Heyne R, Chalak LF, Mir IN. Neurodevelopmental outcomes in extremely preterm infants with placental pathologic evidence of fetal inflammatory response. Pediatr Res. 2024 Aug 7. doi: 10.1038/s41390-024-03391-1. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 39112787.
- Leon RL, Bitar L, Sharma K, Mir IN, Chalak LF. Postnatal Cerebral Hemodynamics and Placental Vascular Malperfusion Lesions in Neonates With Congenital Heart Disease. Pediatr Neurol. 2024 Jul;156:72-78. doi: 10.1016/j.pediatrneurol.2024.03.028. Epub 2024 Apr 6. PMID: 38733857; PMCID: PMC11269165.
- Nayak SP, Sánchez-Rosado M, Reis JD, Brown LS, Mangona KL, Sharma P, Nelson DB, Wyckoff MH, Pandya S, Mir IN, Brion LP. Development of a Prediction Model for Surgery or Early Mortality at the Time of Initial Assessment for Necrotizing Enterocolitis. Am J Perinatol. 2024 Sep;41(12):1714-1727. doi: 10.1055/a-2253-8656. Epub 2024 Jan 25. PMID: 38272063.
- Oren MS, Clarke RL, Price M, Thomas JM, Machie M, Dolce AM, et al. Human Parechovirus (HPeV) infections: clinical presentations, patterns, and evolution of neonatal brain injury. J Perinatol. 2024;44(4):581-3.
- Chalak LF. Moving the Needle in Perinatal Asphyxia. Clin Perinatol. 2024 Sep;51(3):xxi-xxiii. doi: 10.1016/j.clp.2024.06.001. PMID: 39095109
- New Trials Published This Year
New Trials Published This Year
Faix RG, Laptook AR, Shankaran S, Eggleston B, Chowdhury D, Heyne RJ, Das A, Pedroza C, Tyson JE, Wusthoff C, Bonifacio SL, Sánchez PJ, Yoder BA, Laughon MM, Vasil DM, Van Meurs KP, Crawford MM, Higgins RD, Poindexter BB, Colaizy TT, Hamrick SEG, Chalak LF, Ohls RK, Hartley-McAndrew ME, Dysart K, D'Angio CT, Guillet R, Kicklighter SD, Carlo WA, Sokol GM, DeMauro SB, Hibbs AM, Cotten CM, Merhar SL, Bapat RV, Harmon HM, Sewell E, Winter S, Natarajan G, Mosquera R, Hintz SR, Maitre NL, Benninger KL, Peralta-Carcelen M, Hines AC, Duncan AF, Wilson-Costello DE, Trembath A, Malcolm WF, Walsh MC; Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Neonatal Research Network. Whole-Body Hypothermia for Neonatal Encephalopathy in Preterm Infants 33 to 35 Weeks' Gestation: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Pediatr. 2025 Apr 1;179(4):396-406. doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.6613. PMID: 39992674; PMCID: PMC11851295.
- Top Active Grants
Top Active Grants
Award Description: A Novel Wavelet Neurovascular Bundle for Real Time Detection of Injury in Neonatal Encephalopathy
Principal Investigator: Lina Chalak
Start Date: 07-15-2017
End Date: 03-31-2028Award Description: COOL PRIME: Comparative Effectiveness for Cooling Mild HIE
Principal Investigator: Lina Chalak
Start Date: 01-01-2023
End Date: 04-01-2029Award Description: Optimization of Saturation Targets And Resuscitation Trial (OptiSTART)
Principal Investigator: Vishal Kapadia
Start Date: 07-21-2022
End Date: 06-30-2027Award Description: Mechanisms of maternal high fat diet induced susceptibility to gut inflammation in offspring
Principal Investigator: Julie Mirpuri
Start Date: 03-17-2020
End Date: 02-28-2025Award Description: NICHD COOPERATIVE MULTICENTER NEONATAL RESEARCH NETWORK
Principal Investigator: Myra Wyckoff
Start Date: 04-01-2023
End Date: 03-31-2030Award Description: R01 (Research Project)-NICHD: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Principal Investigator: Mohan Kumar Krishnan
Start Date: 12/18/2024
End Date: 11/30/2029Award Description: R01 (Research Project)-NHLBI: National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute
Principal Investigator: Mohan Kumar Krishnan
Start Date: 03/20/2023
End Date: 02/28/2027 - Rich History in Neonatal Care
In 1973 the Division of Neonatal Medicine consisted of one full-time faculty member, Jacob Kay, M.D., who had trained at Boston Children's Hospital in the 1950s. The division also included two part-time faculty, both of whom trained at UT Southwestern Medical School and volunteered at Parkland Hospital as needed. There was a 60-bed “Preemie Nursery” on the 8th floor of Parkland. Although there were more than 7,000 deliveries annually, there was no Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Parkland nor at the adjacent Children's Medical Center. Neonates requiring ventilation were transferred to Children's Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (ICU), which admitted a mix of neonates, older infants and children. Additionally, up to this point, there had been no neonatal survivors less than 1,000 grams birth weight.
In 1973, Charles Rosenfeld, M.D., was recruited to join the Neonatal Medicine Division from the Perinatal Training Program at the University of Colorado. Central to the recruitment effort was the potential to design and build a large NICU adjacent to Labor and Delivery at Parkland in an existing empty space with over 12,000 square feet that connected with Children's. Dr. Rosenfeld came on board with the mission to build a NICU and expand the division.
In January 1974, a six-bed NICU with a potential capacity for 12 neonates was opened on the 8th floor of Parkland. This was the first NICU in Dallas and was to complement the Pediatric ICU at Children's. Soon thereafter, Dr. Kay left Dallas, leaving Dr. Rosenfeld responsible for providing care in both ICUs. The following year Jon Tyson, M.D., was recruited from the training program run by Jack Sinclair, M.D., in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and Dan Levin, M.D., was recruited from the University of California, San Francisco to serve as the director of the Pediatric ICU. At that time, the High-Risk Pregnancy Unit, under the direction of Peggy Whalley, M.D., was moved from the “old” Parkland to the 8th floor adjacent to the NICU, permitting the development of neonatal medicine with a close association with high-risk obstetrics.
In July 1975, the bed occupancy in the Parkland NICU doubled following the birth of the Davis quintuplets. Born at 32 weeks gestation, they were the first quintuplets in North America to all survive. The Davis quintuplets have done well and are now the parents of 15 children of their own. This pregnancy highlighted the rich relationship that had developed between Obstetrics, under the direction of Jack Pritchard, M.D., and Neonatal Medicine.
The 7,500 annual births at Parkland kept the NICU full and neonates weighing 1,000 grams or less were now thriving. Obstetrical residents were learning to resuscitate, and neonatal mortality began to fall, decreasing from 15/1,000 live births to less than 10/1,000 live births within two years. The Neonatology fellowship, which soon became a three-year program, began to develop with the training of Barbara Manroe, M.D., Jaime Furzan, M.D., and others.
In 1976, Drs. Tyson and Rosenfeld, in collaboration with Paul MacDonald M.D., Chairman of Obstetrics and Gynecology, were awarded five years of funding by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to assess the effects of obstetrical and neonatal care on outcomes throughout Dallas County. In conjunction with Juan Jimenez, M.D., in Obstetrics, the Neonatal Database was established to evaluate all pregnancies in Dallas County. That database continues to exist and now includes data from more than 30,000 NICU admissions and greater than 5,000 very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) neonates <1,500 grams.
Additional faculty were soon recruited from prestigious institutions, including William Engle, M.D., from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in 1980, Abbot Laptook, M.D., from Brown University in 1981 and Heber Nielsen, M.D., from Harvard, also in 1981. The division's research base expanded to include studies of cerebral blood flow and metabolism, renal physiology and surfactant synthesis. The division also was asked to collaborate in the first large-scale assessment of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
With the Parkland NICU now at full capacity and no NICU at Children's, there was an increasing lack of bed space. The Pediatric Burn Unit was moved from the 8th floor at Parkland, creating room for the expanded intensive care area of the NICU with 15 beds. The older NICU area became the step-down or intermediate care area. This resulted in 27 ICU beds to cover the more than 8,000 births and approximately 1,000 NICU admissions occurring annually.
The Hospital District and County Commissioners soon realized that Parkland needed to be updated and the NICU needed to expand and move to the space adjacent to Labor and Delivery. In 1980, with the efforts of Ralph Rogers, Chairman of the Hospital Board, and many others, an $80 million bond issue was passed by the people of Dallas to modernize Parkland and build a new NICU. When the new NICU opened in 1984, neonates were successfully transported down five floors to a large, modern NICU located less than 50 feet from Labor and Delivery. The new NICU was equipped with 15-20 ICU beds and 40 ACN/CCN beds to accommodate the increase in deliveries to 11,000 annually.
From 1985 to 1988 the division welcomed eight new faculty members from academic institutions across the nation. Included in the new faculty was a developmental psychologist, Robert Lasky, Ph.D., who was recruited to run the Low Birth Weight Follow Up Clinic, to initiate research in auditory evoked potentials, and to permit the division to collaborate successfully with Marie McCormick, M.D., at Harvard on a nationwide study of early intervention in VLBW neonates.
The fellowship program grew to two to three trainees each year, and the teaching and research efforts of the division were thriving in the 1980s. Through the efforts of Dr. Tyson, the division was selected as a founding institution in the development of the NIH-sponsored Neonatal Network for Clinical Trials in 1986. It has since remained an important player in the network, reflecting successful efforts to recruit patients and by maintaining an outstanding follow-up program run by R. Sue Broyles, M.D., from 1991 through 2002 and Roy Heyne, M.D., since 2003. The follow-up program was nationally recognized as the first randomized controlled trial to report that primary care offered a significant advantage to the outcome of VLBW neonates.
In the 1990s, the NICU at Parkland was chosen as one of seven Centers of Excellence. The clinical, research and teaching programs were further strengthened with the recruitment of Jeff Perlman, M.D., from Washington University, Fernando Moya, M.D., from Yale, Philip Shaul, M.D., from Brown and Pablo Sanchez, M.D., Blair Cox, M.D., Myra Wyckoff, M.D., and Walid Salhab, M.D., Lina Chalak, M.D., from UT Southwestern between 1990 and Early 2000. Greg Jackson, M.D., was recruited in 1989 to direct the division's teaching and clinical program in the term nursery and to develop the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Program and was joined by Dorothy Sendelbach, M.D., in 1993. At present there are several general pediatricians in the division who teach, do clinical research and both supervise and provide care to nearly 15,000 near-term and term neonates annually.
In 1981, the Obstetrics and Pediatric staff at St. Paul Hospital approached the division to consider starting a NICU and assuming care of their high-risk patients. This provided an opportunity to develop a referral program for women with high-risk pregnancies and neonates on the campus and to incorporate the clinical expertise available at St. Paul to deliver care to these patients. An educational outreach program was developed expanding the referral base for neonates and at-risk pregnant women to include areas of north and east Texas. Dr. Jon Tyson was the first Medical Director of the outreach program and was succeeded by Kathleen Kennedy, M.D. St. Paul served as an excellent training second hospital.
Although the new Parkland NICU was designed to accommodate neonates from approximately 12,000 deliveries annually, it has since required renovation and expansion to address the continuing increase in deliveries. There are presently more than 15,000 births per year and approximately 1,300 admissions to the Level III NICU, making it one of the busiest in the nation. Efforts began in 2000 to establish a referral NICU at Children's, and in April 2007 a temporary 16-bed NICU was opened. In 2009, a permanent expansion to a 36-bed referral NICU occurred, allowing the Children's NICU to become a major site for neonatal referrals in the area.
Recruitment efforts continue in order to provide excellence in research, training, clinical care and long-term follow-up for high-risk pregnant women and neonates in North Texas. Rashmin Savani, M.D., joined the division in March 2006 and became the Division Director. The fellowship program, now under the direction of Luc Brion, M.D., has trained at least 60 fellows in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, many of whom have pursued academic careers. In 2010 the division totaled 24 faculty and 12 fellows. Several faculty members have moved to become Directors of other divisions or successful investigators at their respective institutions. All of this exemplifies the extraordinary group of faculty assembled by the division over time, their collaborative nature and their continued commitment to excellence. Chris Lehman, M.D., was recruited and launched the informatics program.
Imran Mir, M.D., replaced Dr. Brion as fellowship director in 2018, and Dr. Chalak replaced Dr. Savani in 2022 becoming the first woman chief of neonatology just as the division was celebrating its 50th anniversary. She recruited 20 additional faculty members and added Texas Health Frisco as a first NICU. The division now boasts 60 faculty members, excelling in all aspects of the tripartite mission including 12 NIH-funded scholars. Dr. Rosenfeld and Dr. Brion were awarded Emeritus status. Happy 50th anniversary. We look forward to another 50 years of serving our most vulnerable babies!
Credit: Originally written by Charles Rosenfeld, M.D.
Credit: Updated by Lina Chalak, M.D. 2024
