The UF Sepsis and Critical Illness Research Center is the first of its kind in the nation and studies long-term outcomes in patients treated for sepsis in the UF Health Shands Hospital’s surgical and trauma intensive care units. Our goals is to develop clinical solutions for sepsis, as well as illnesses that stem from it and their enduring effects.
Four main projects are being initiated in the center’s first five years of operation:
- Studying long-term outcomes in survivors of critical illness, including severe trauma, sepsis and COVID19 infection. These outcomes include not only hospital-free survival, but the long-term physical, function and cognitive effects of critical illness.
- Understanding the underlying mechanisms that drive chronic critical illness in survivors of sepsis, trauma and COVID19 with a focus on ‘pathological activation’ of myeloid cell subsets.
- Development of novel biomarkers that can be used not only to identify critically ill patients at risk of complicated clinical outcomes, but also individualized therapeutic interventions (personalized medicine).
- Exploring the fundamental changes in bone marrow structure and function associated with critical illness and a dysregulated ’emergency myelopoiesis’ that occurs in survivors of trauma, sepsis and COVID19
- Better understanding how chronic critical illness and persistent inflammation drives cognitive decline in older adults and those with risk factors in dementia-associated diseases.
- Investigating how chronic critical illness and immobility influence skeletal muscle wasting, the release of endogenous alarmins, and the persistent inflammation seen in older adults who survive sepsis, trauma and COVID19.
- Investigating why the very young and aged are at increased risk of infections and sepsis, and why these patients have more adverse outcomes.
- Exploring the interactions between critical illness and cognitive declines in healthy aged individuals and those predisposed to Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders.