Samuel Gentle, MD

Dr. Gentle is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Attending Neonatologist. His primary research interests are focused on identifying mechanisms that contribute to bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) development in preterm infants and protective strategies that may reduce adverse pulmonary outcomes.

His translational work has evaluated airway nitrite (PMID: 32957939) and oral nitrate reductase (PMID: 33166868), mediators of nitric oxide bioavailability, to BPD development. If nitrate reductase activity and/or other downstream products can identify infants more likely to develop BPD, additional study will provide a novel predictive biomarker(s) for BPD that can be tested in future larger validation studies. More importantly, this may allow future development of novel therapeutics targeting the nitrate reductase activity pathway.

More recently, he has evaluated biomedical signals as both predictors and identifiers of modifiable exposures in the development of BPD associated pulmonary hypertension (BPD-PH). While there are a growing number of potential biomarkers for predicting pulmonary disease in preterm infants, the scalability of utilizing this data leverages the ubiquity of continuous monitoring in the NICU. His group has reported that infants developing BPD-PH, when compared to infants with BPD alone, have longer intermittent hypoxemic events (PMID: 36449386) and achieve lower oxygen saturations (PMID: 36449386). Further investigations will explore whether oxygen saturation targets are mechanistically related to pulmonary hypertension in preterm infants which remains a major research gap critical for progress in reducing morbidity and mortality in this vulnerable population.