Early Career Research Award Recipient: Dr. Pinninti

Early Career Research Award Recipient: Dr. Pinninti

Dr. Pinninti is an Assistant Professor of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL. Dr. Pinninti’s research interests include vestibular and balance disorders in children with congenital CMV infection (cCMV), co-infection with CMV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) during pregnancy and the clinical significance of CMV reactivation in immunocompetent critically ill children.

Dr. Pinninti’s project is titled ‘Developing a prediction model for hearing outcome in symptomatic congenital CMV’ and will utilize a combination of clinical and virological factors from a large cohort of children with cCMV who participated in natural history studies and treatment trials to develop a prediction model and stratify children with symptomatic cCMV to determine their risk for developing SNHL and response to antiviral treatment. Dr. Pinninti’s research will address an urgent unmet medical need as we currently lack the ability to identify children with cCMV who have the highest risk to develop SNHL. With evolving interest in universal newborn screening for cCMV, it is even more important to identify predictors of outcome, in particular SNHL and antiviral therapy response, so that intervention measures and resources can be better utilized.

Congratulations Dr. Pinninti, we look forward to learning more about your research!