Terrie E. Inder, M.D., Ph.D., has received a 2008 Distinguished Clinical Scientist Award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
The $1.5 million award recognizes outstanding leadership in clinical research and allows leading physician-scientists to meld biomedical research and clinical applications that improve human health. Inder, a pediatrician and researcher at the School of Medicine and St. Louis Children’s Hospital, was one of six award recipients.
Inder
“Terrie Inder is an outstanding clinical investigator who bridges the gaps between basic neurobiology, translational medicine and health outcomes for our smallest and most vulnerable patients,” said Alan L. Schwartz, Ph.D., M.D., the Harriet B. Spoehrer Professor and head of pediatrics.
Inder, associate professor of pediatrics, of neurology and of radiology, uses imaging studies on brains of premature, at-risk infants to help predict developmental outcomes, in particular the risk of severe cognitive delays, psychomotor delays, cerebral palsy or hearing or visual impairments.
Using sophisticated analysis of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, Inder can determine abnormalities in the brains of preterm infants born at 30 weeks gestation or less and assist in guiding families as to the risk for future disability. The outcomes of the MRI scans also can inform the physicians about the impact of treatment in the neonatal intensive care unit on brain development.
Inder also co-directs a large multidisciplinary team that provides clinical care, teaching and research to improve the outcomes for infants born at risk for disability. The team combines multidisciplinary research initiatives in pediatrics, neurology, radiology, obstetrics and psychology based on studies at the bedside of newborn infants in the neonatal and pediatric intensive care units at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. All infants are followed into childhood to monitor their progress.
Inder earned a medical degree and doctorate from the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. She completed a residency in pediatrics at Dunedin Hospital, a newborn medicine fellowship at Christchurch Hospital/Otago Medical School and a residency in child neurology at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. She joined the faculty at the School of Medicine in 2005.