Janet Soul, MDCM, FRCPC
ASSOCIATE, BOSTON CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL, BOSTON, MA
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF NEUROLOGY, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
Janet Soul is a pediatric neurologist who directs the Fetal-Neonatal Neurology Program at Boston Children’s Hospital and is an Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. Her research and clinical work are focused on Fetal and Neonatal Neurology. She obtained undergraduate and medical degrees at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, then moved to Boston to complete her pediatric residency, Child Neurology training in the Harvard Longwood Neurology Program, and a Neonatal Neurology Fellowship under the mentorship of Drs Joseph Volpe and Adré du Plessis. The Fetal-Neonatal Neurology Program she leads provides specialized multidisciplinary care to fetuses, newborns and children whose neurologic disorders begin in utero or during the newborn period, and provides training for neurology, neonatology and pediatric fellows, residents and medical students. She has mentored junior faculty, fellows, residents and students, and her contributions have been recognized with teaching awards.
Dr. Soul spends the majority of her time conducting and publishing clinical research focused on the pathophysiology, treatment and outcome of neonatal seizures and brain injury related to hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy in term newborns, congenital heart disease, and preterm birth. She has contributed invited reviews and chapters on aspects of neonatal seizures and brain injury to the major pediatric neurology textbooks and handbooks. She has been funded by the NIH, March of Dimes, Hood Foundation, United Cerebral Palsy Foundation, among others, and has served as a grant reviewer for most of these same funding organizations. She was the Principal Investigator of a randomized, double-blind, controlled trial of bumetanide to treat neonatal seizures (NCT00830531). This was the first neonatal seizure trial to employ a standard therapy control group with an add-on therapy design to test a novel drug with an anticonvulsant mechanism specific to the newborn brain. She co-chaired a Workgroup on Neonatal Seizures supported by the International Neonatal Consortium of the Critical Path Institute to develop consensus recommendations for the design of neonatal seizure treatment trials. She also participates in multicenter collaborative studies, such as the Neonatal Seizure Registry study, and has served on DSMBs for NIH-funded multicenter trials in Neonatal Neurology. Dr. Soul has held leadership roles in the major societies and committees relevant to the field of Neonatal Neurology, including the Society of Pediatric Research, Child Neurology Society, American Neurological Association and the newly formed Newborn Brain Society.