Medical Intensive Care Unit | Research & Innovation

In the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) at Boston Children’s Hospital, our faculty conducts research that spans the spectrum from cellular to clinical. We are dedicated to pushing the leading edge of research in order to develop technologies and novel therapies with federal founding, foundational funding, and national leadership to advance the field.

The MICU at Boston Children's Hospital is a lead site for a national clinical trial of glucose control in pediatric critical care patients. The purpose of the study is to determine whether or not keeping a child’s blood sugar in the normal range during their stay in the ICU will help to decrease infections and speed up the recovery process.

Michael Agus, MD, Chief of the Division of Medical Critical Care at Boston Children’s, is one of the lead investigators in this trial.

Other researchers in our unit are currently focused on:

• creative and cutting-edge therapies for critical asthma, involving the use of a gas mixture of helium and oxygen to help deliver medicine down deeper into the lungs more easily and efficiently

• non-invasive ventilatory strategies in babies and children with respiratory failure

• clinical applications of non-invasive hemodynamic monitoring

• automating subcutaneous insulin delivery in children with type 1 diabetes mellitus, and intravenous insulin delivery in critically ill children including use of novel continuous glucose monitoring technologies, with a specific emphasis on minimizing hypoglycemia

• understanding the pathophysiology of cerebral edema in diabetic ketoacidosis and permanent memory impairment in children with type 1 diabetes mellitus who develop diabetic ketoacidosis

• innovative drugs and delivery systems to find new and sustained ways to deliver medicine to critically ill children and development of a revolutionary approach that will draw out specific harmful compounds or molecules in the blood during severe infections

• examination of the cellular and molecular signaling that occurs when lungs are injured, whether it be by an infection or a mechanical ventilator