Developing new treatments for babies with birth asphyxia related brain injury (neonatal encephalopathy) and preventing cerebral palsy is hampered by two major roadblocks. Firstly, different babies with birth asphyxia may appear clinically similar, but their brain injury may be due to different underlying reasons and they may have different outcomes. Secondly, it takes several years before the impact of brain injury becomes measurable through clinical testing.

In my thesis, I examine two key hypotheses (a) cerebral magnetic resonance biomarkers during the neonatal period can accurately predict neurodevelopmental outcomes at 2 years following therapeutic hypothermia for neonatal encephalopathy (b) neonatal encephalopathy is associated with a unique host gene expression profile at the time of birth.