Faizah Bhatti MD

Dr. Faizah Bhatti is a clinical neonatologist and a post-doctoral trained basic, translational and clinical investigator. As an independently funded clinician scientist, she committed to improving outcomes of premature infants by understanding how blood vessel development is altered in inflammatory diseases. In particular, the focus of her research program is to elucidate the role of inflammation and surfactant proteins in abnormal blood vessel growth in the retina as it relates to retinopathy of prematurity. Dr. Bhatti holds academic appointments in the Department of Pediatrics, Ophthalmology and the Oklahoma Center for Neurosciences. Collaborating with retinal, brain and immune experts, she is an independently funded clinician scientist studying inflammatory vascular biology.

Her background and training give her an understanding of both the clinical relevance as well as the methodology needed to scientifically address clinical complications of extreme prematurity. Dr. Bhatti examines the biological and molecular roles of inflammatory mediators on vascular development, structure and function in both retinal as well as cerebral vascular beds. Simultaneously, she utilizes clinical data on preterm infants to study associations between inflammation, sepsis, growth and retinopathy in premature infants. She is a principal investigator/sub-PI for several clinical trials involving therapeutics and clinical aspects of ROP in the neonatal subjects at OUHSC. She has trained several residents, fellows, and students in her lab program, several of whom have gone on to pursue academic fellowships and have contributed to the publications from their research program. Dr. Bhatti is committed to caring for premature babies and finding cures based on sound evidence and science.