[Intro Graphic]: Based at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Ohio State’s Gail Besner turns lab science into lifesaving surgery for fragile infants.

[Gail Besner, Pediatric Surgeon-Scientist, College of Medicine, Nationwide Children’s Hospital]:  When you save the life of a child, you've saved an entire lifetime. Being a pediatric surgeon-scientist, we're in the trenches. We see when we can't save the life of a patient. I am interested in a disease called necrotizing enterocolitis. It's a disease that affects prematurely born babies. The baby can look fine at noon, and by 4:00 to 6:00 PM they can be dead of this deadly disease. If I have to operate and I have to tell the parents that there's only a 50% chance that their baby is going to live through this illness, that's a really heart-wrenching problem. The entire goal of my research is to try to find a discovery in the research laboratory that would stop these tiny little vulnerable patients from getting necrotizing enterocolitis in the first place. And as long as I'm standing and I'm breathing, I plan to continue my research because we have to do something to save these precious newborn babies.

[Closing Graphic]: The Ohio State University
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