Hello.
Let us help you customize your experience.
Tell us a little about yourself so we can share more relevant content and resources.
For Parents, Patients, and All Visitors: COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus Disease) Information >
Your child's care is important, especially during flu season. We are here to provide you with resources to keep your family safe.
Sign up online to quickly and easily manage your child's medical information and connect with us whenever you need.
We're focused on improving child health through exceptional patient care, groundbreaking research, continuing education, and outreach and prevention.
Our ERs are staffed 24/7 with doctors, nurses and staff who know kids best – all trained to deliver right-sized care for your child in a safe environment.
Our pediatric cardiologists combine world-class expertise with state-of-the-art technology to care for our most important patient: your child.
Find health tips, patient stories, and news you can use to champion children.
Our flu resources and education information help parents and families provide effective care at home.
We are dedicated to caring for children, allowing us to uniquely shape the landscape of pediatric care in Arkansas.
Our researchers are driven by their limitless curiosity to discover new and better ways to make these children better today and healthier tomorrow.
We're focused on improving child health through exceptional patient care, groundbreaking research, continuing education, and outreach and prevention.
Then we're looking for you! Work at a place where you can change lives...including your own.
When you give to Arkansas Children’s, you help deliver on our promise of a better today and a healthier tomorrow for the children of Arkansas and beyond.
The gift of time is one of the most precious gifts you can give. You can make a difference in the life of a sick child.
Support and participate in this advocacy effort on behalf of Arkansas’ youth and our organization.
Tell us a little about yourself so we can share more relevant content and resources.
My research focuses on health-oriented basic and translational studies of immunity. A key area of research at ACNC is centered on understanding whether breast-fed children have any advantage in terms of gut development, immune function and also programming of growth and body composition. It has been suggested that breast-fed infants have advanced immune system development compared to formula-fed infants, and dietary factors in breast-milk and formulas can alter gut microbiota composition. However, does the microbiome alone shape gut development and subsequent immune function in infants? Do breast-fed children have better immune responses to infections? In order to understand and address these questions we utilize a piglet model of infant formula or breast milk feeding. Our lab and collaborators are evaluating histological and molecular indices of gastrointestinal development and gut associated lymphoid tissue, and testing how postnatal diet impacts antigen-associated immune responses. These outcomes are paired to analysis of the specific gut microbe populations that differ by diet, providing a unique perspective on the consequences of early infant nutrition and feeding. Our ultimate goal is to provide a scientific basis for postnatal feeding recommendations including breastfeeding. Furthermore, this research should prove important in efforts to improve infant formula by adding components that support physiological and immune outcomes similar to those seen with breastfeeding.