Home Department: undeclared
Mentor: Henry C. Lee (Pediatrics - Neonatal & Developmental Medicine)

“Evident Health Disparities amongst CA NICUs Donor Milk Distribution”

Perinatal health in particular is often a reflection of the power dynamic between physician and patients, dominated quite heavily by racial and socioeconomic disparities. Through this project Bene is comparing data of reported patient comfort levels to the susceptibility of the newborn to intake breast milk. The necessary data trends of comfort, class, and overall birth experience will be connected to racial genomic trends via the expressed FOLR1 receptor, an expressed gene during lactation in human milk cells. Bene is aided by data from ‘Gene expression in breast milk cells is associated with maternal and infant characteristics’.