About the SET Center
Accelerating the Care of Premature InfantsEarly-life events critically influence health over the entire life course. SET exists to ensure that healthy infants become healthy children who grow into healthy adults.
Erika Claud, MD
Inaugural Director, SET Center
Chief, Section of Neonatology
Professor of Pediatrics
Welcome to the SET Center
The Center for the Science of Early Trajectories was founded with a single, moonshot goal, to improve outcomes of all our patients across the entire life course by focusing on biological development. We have a particular interest in the development of infants born prematurely, or before 37 weeks gestational age, as their development is occurring from the moment of their first breath in suboptimal conditions, which can hinder their later development. Each and every single one of our patients across the hospital started as an infant, whether born preterm or full-term, and their health in the earliest days of their lives continues to impact them today.
The SET Center aims to bring diverse clinicians and scientists into our field in order to, much like cancer care, leverage the expertise of the entire medical center to advance the scientific understanding of biological development. SET’s ground-breaking collaborations will establish a biologic trajectory at the cellular and molecular levels.
Currently, we do not have formal definitions for normal development of organs and systems, which limits our ability to provide the best care for various reasons: if we do not know what is abnormal development, we cannot determine the efficacy of current treatments, and we cannot evaluate the safety of new treatments. Identifying biomarkers and other measures of development would solve many of these problems.
By revolutionizing neonatal care, UChicago will be at the forefront of improving the health and outcomes for all patients.
What’s in a Name
The name for the SET Center was intentionally chosen by its founder, Dr. Erika Claud, and one of the founding board members, Dr. Bree Andrews. The Center for the Science of Early Trajectories is meant to portray the whole of our research. It was created to encourage the best development for our patients young and old, and to maintain that lifelong optimal trajectory.
We are not a research center focused exclusively on premature infants or on the infant period. Research that only considers a single life stage forgets that our health status today is built on yesterday’s foundation. We continue to develop from infancy until senior age. Our intention is to promote the health of premature infants for the rest of their lives, which will require researchers from all specialties.
Mission Statement
To foster multidisciplinary scholarship and team science focused on early development, in order to improve outcomes and optimize health across the life course for our most vulnerable patients in the community we serve.
Vision Statement
To advance the scientific understanding of biologic development from the earliest stages of life, and integrate these tools to ensure the optimal trajectory and well-being of our patients throughout the life course.
