Research Trainee Spotlight: Meryl Vedrenne-Cloquet, MD, PhD
As a medical student in France, Meryl Vedrenne-Cloquet, MD, PhD, participated in a training session designed to help physicians better understand the experience of critically ill patients. It ended up inspiring her research.
“We were noninvasively ventilated with a face mask,” Dr. Vedrenne-Cloquet recalls. “I was making significant effort to breathe, but the ventilator wasn’t providing enough support for me. And yet, it was working perfectly for the student next to me.”
At that moment, she realized the importance of individually optimizing ventilation—especially for critically ill children. She went on to become a pediatric intensivist in Paris and then joined CHLA to work on this very issue.
As a Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Robinder Khemani, MD, MsCI, she is using data from a clinical trial that Dr. Khemani is leading in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Her research aims to identify and characterize novel respiratory subphenotypes (specific traits) in ventilated children with acute respiratory failure.
“The goal is to allow clinicians to better tailor ventilation support and ultimately improve outcomes,” explains Dr. Vedrenne-Cloquet, who grew up in France.
In her free time, she loves singing, running, yoga and Pilates. “Above all, I really enjoy discovering the L.A. area and California,” she says. “I am learning deeply the American way of life!”
