Cynthia Downard, MD, Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Louisville, has been awarded a $25,000 American Pediatric Surgical Association Foundation research grant.

The grant will fund a project that will use an animal model to study alterations in the blood flow to the intestines of infants afflicted with necrotozing enterocolitis (NEC), a disease of the intestine that develops in premature infants and results in damage and death to parts of the intestine. Currently there are no good treatments for this problem other than an operation to remove the intestine after it has died. Downard is hopeful that this study will represent a step toward the development of alternative therapies for these patients.