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Billie Lou Short, MD
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Children's National Medical Center
Division Chief, Neonatology
Principal Investigator, Children's Research Institute
Center for Neuroscience Research (CNR)
George Washington University
School of Medicine and Health Sciences
Professor, Pediatrics |
Contact Information
Children's National Medical Center
Center for Neuroscience Research (CNR)
111 Michigan Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20010-2970
202-476-3314
bshort@cnmc.org
Education & Training
| Institution & Location |
Degree |
Year(s) |
Field of Study |
| Northwestern Oklahoma State University, OK |
BS |
1965-1969 |
Biology |
| University of Oklahoma Health Science Center, OK |
MD |
1970-1974 |
Medicine |
| Oklahoma Children’s Memorial Hospital, OUHSC, OK |
Residency |
1974-1977 |
Pediatrics |
| Children’s National Medical Center George Washington University School of Medical and Health Sciences, Washington, DC |
Fellowship |
1977-1979 |
Neonatology- Perinatology |
| Children’s National Medical Center Washington, DC |
Fellowship |
1979-1980 |
Neonatology Research |
Research Interests
Dr. Billie Lou Short is internationally recognized for her work on neonatal respiratory failure and its treatments, including extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), and laboratory evaluation of new therapies for neonatal respiratory failure including, high frequency ventilation and inhaled nitric oxide. Cerebral hemorrhage/infarction is the major cause of death in infants treated with ECMO, and thus her clinical interest in ECMO as a therapy for newborns failing conventional therapy has directed her laboratory research into the area of brain physiology and alterations of brain function noted after exposure to ECMO. Her original studies were conducted at Johns Hopkins in the laboratory of Richard Traystman, PhD in the Division of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine. During this time period, she developed a lamb model of ECMO. In this model she studied the effect of exposure to the altered blood flow patterns created by the ECMO bypass circuit on brain function and showed that cerebral autoregulation was markedly altered. This work was done in a lamb model using the radiolabeled microsphere technique. She hypothesized that this alteration was secondary to endothelial dysfunction caused by the altered blood flow patterns seen in patients on VA ECMO. To further study this hypothesis she brought Dr. Hui Xie, a talented vascular biologist, into her laboratory to study microvessels from animals exposed to ECMO. Their work is the first to identify the mechanisms of these vascular alterations. They have shown that the nitric oxide pathway in cerebral vessels exposed to ECMO is altered resulting in an abnormal vasodilation of these vessels. They are now in the process of identifying altered metabolic pathways see after exposure to prolonged hypoxia with reperfusion, a clinical state seen in most patients prior to requiring ECMO therapy. They plan on continuing to study these alterations, and to further define the metabolic pathways involved in an attempt to determine if there are therapeutic measures that can be undertaken to stabilize the cerebral vessels, and thus reduce the risk for cerebral injury.
Clinical Interests
Click here for more information about the doctor’s clinical practice, including how to make an appointment.
Publications
View a partial list of publications for Billie Lou Short, MD through the National Library of Medicine's PubMed online database.
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