Tiffany Ko, PhD
Senior Research Scientist, Rescitation Science Center
Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Philadelphia, PA, USA
Excuse the mess! Currently under construction.
Please check back later!
About Me
Biomedical Engineering
Designing non-invasive optical neuromonitoring technologies to guide pediatric critical care.
The focus of my research is the development of non-invasive optical tools to identify critical periods of neurological vulnerability and to direct individualized clinical management to mitigate neurological injury in critically-ill children. Currently, I am a Research Scientist in the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) Resuscitation Science Center. I specialize in the development and validation of real-time, brain-directed interventional management strategies in preclinical pediatric swine models of cardiopulmonary resuscitation and extracorporeal life support.
Working in collaboration with clinician/scientists in the CHOP Resuscitation Science Center and the Department of Biomedical and Health Informatics, I lead data architecture, integration and machine learning model development efforts to examine this rich physiologic dataset (high-resolution physiologic waveforms, blood gas and serum biomarkers, brain MRI, metabolomics, mitochondrial respirometry, histopathology) to identify novel physiologic predictors of survival and neurological injury.
Thank you for visiting and please do not hesitate to get in touch!
Collaborators
Research Groups
I collaborate with an outstanding team of scientists and clinicians.
RESUSCITATION SCIENCE CENTER
CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA
PI: Todd J. Kilbaugh, MD
Investigating metabolism and mitochondrial bioenergetic dysfunction in acute brain injury; including pediatric traumatic brain injury, cardiac arrest, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and cardiopulmonary bypass.
JUNE AND STEVE WOLFSON LABORATORY FOR CLINICAL AND BIOMEDICAL OPTICS
CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA
PI: Wesley B. Baker, PhD
Implementation of novel, non-invasive technology for measuring cerebral metabolism and hemodynamics in vulnerable pediatric populations.
Lynch Laboratory
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Examining physiologic risk factors for neurological injury in neonates and children with congenital heart defects.
TSUI LABORATORY TEAM
CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA, DEPARTMENT OF BIOMEDICAL AND HEALTH INFORMATICS
PI: Fuchiang (Rich) Tsui, PhD, FAMIA
Clinical informatics, natural language processing, artificial intelligence and machine learning, population informatics, data science, signal processing, mobile healthcare, and large real-time clinical production systems.
YODH BIOMEDICAL OPTICS GROUP
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
PI: Arjun G. Yodh, PhD
Functional imaging and monitoring of living tissues with diffuse light, photodynamic therapy, and linear/nonlinear optics & spectroscopy.
Research Topics
Diffuse Optical Monitoring of Tissue Hemodynamics and Metabolism
Towards individualized neuroprotective strategies.
Congenital Heart Defects (CHD)
Perioperative Monitoring of Cerebral Hemodynamics
Infants with critical congenital heart disease (CHD) experience a high incidence of neurological injury, specifically diffuse white matter injury, which may underlie adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes at school age. Using noninvasive diffuse optical measurements of cerebral hemodynamics, we have uncovered an important link between time-to-surgery, declining cerebral oxygen saturation, and risk of new or worsened postoperative white matter injury. This work aims to elucidate the perioperative timing of cerebral metabolism and desaturation to pinpoint vulnerable periods for injury.
Read more in our 2018 publication on preoperative cerebral hemodynamics.
Validation Study [Preclinical]
Cerebral Oxygen Metabolism During Deep Hypothermic Cardiopulmonary Bypass
Deep hypothermic cardiopulmonary bypass (DH CPB) is an important, neuroprotective strategy wherein the patient is cooled below 20˚C via cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) to stabilize cerebral metabolism. This typically occurs in infants and children undergoing surgical repair of complex congenital heart disease (CHD). Despite widespread use over four decades, uncertainty remains per the optimal temperature management for cooling and rewarming to prevent hypoxic-ischemic-reperfusion brain injury. Validation of non-invasive diffuse optical measurement of cerebral oxygen metabolism may enable individualized optimization of management protocols which ensure sufficient metabolic suppression. In my work, continuous, non-invasive frequency-domain diffuse optical spectroscopy (FD-DOS) and diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) measurements of cerebral oxygen metabolism and cerebral blood flow are validated against invasive measurements of cerebral oxygen extraction and perfusion in a piglet model of DH CPB.
Read more in our 2018 publication.
Injury Mechanisms [Preclinical]
The Impact of Deep Hypothermic Circulatory Arrest (DHCA) on Cerebral Hemodynamics and Metabolism
Building off the DH CPB validation study, the present study characterizes the incremental impact of deep hypothermia and of circulatory arrest on cerebral oxygen metabolism measured using hybrid FD-DOS/DCS in a neonatal swine model of cardiac surgery. This work will provide improved understanding of the contributing factors to cerebral metabolic vulnerability during DHCA in children.
Physiologic-Directed Resuscitation [Preclinical]
Determining the Association of Cerebral Hemodynamics during CPR and Recovery of the Heart
Respiratory-mediated cardiac arrest affects thousands of children each year in the United States.more then 50% of children will not survive to discharge after such an event, and most survivors often have significant neurological injury. The lack of standardized neuromonitoring during resuscitation has precluded the use of cerebral diagnostics to guide CPR and optimize neurological outcomes. This study will provide valuable data to demonstrate the utility of non-invasive diffuse optical neuromonitoring in reflecting the real-time neurophysiology during resuscitation.
Pregnancy Monitoring
Non-Invasive Transabdominal Measurement of Placental Oxygenation during Pregnancy
Robust transport of oxygen across the placental bed is essential to healthy fetal maturation. Aberrant placental oxygenations have been reported in intra-uterine growth restriction (IUGR), pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIH) and other gestational complications based on non-invasive, transabdominal oximetry using continuous-wave near-infrared spectroscopy (CW-NIRS). These findings are limited in sample size and exhibit high inter-subject variability attributed to the uncertainties of placental and superficial tissue morphology with respect to the measurement location, and tissue optical property assumptions utilized in CW-NIRS. Employing radio frequency (RF) modulated light, advanced frequency-domain near-infrared spectroscopy (FD-NIRS) permits patient-specific characterization of optical properties thereby reducing variability and improving physiologic accuracy. In this work, we are currently using ultrasound-guided FD-NIRS to quantify placental oxygenation in healthy mothers
GET IN TOUCH
Looking forward to connecting with you.
If you would like to get in touch, feel free to fill out the form below or email me directly at tiko@seas.upenn.edu.