Prem Fort, M.D.

Dr. Fort specializes in neonatology with the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Maternal, Fetal & Neonatal Institute. He is a co-lead for the institute’s Research and Quality Network and a co-chair of its research council. He advocates for research education and has ongoing projects with residents and fellows related to caffeine and respiratory outcomes as well as biomarkers predictive of necrotizing enterocolitis.

Dr. Fort’s research focus includes control of breathing and apnea of premature infants, specifically as it relates to its management with caffeine. During his fellowship in neonatal-perinatal medicine at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, he successfully presented, with support of his mentor Waldemar Carlo, a large, multicenter, randomized controlled trial called the MOCHA trial, which is currently recruiting at the Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) neonatal research network clinical sites to evaluate the use of caffeine at home for premature infants. He is also a site principal investigator for the Intermittent Hypoxia and Caffeine (ICAF) trial, a multicenter trial headed by Dr. Carl Hunt and Eric Eichenwald. Dr. Fort is also an expert reviewer for caffeine with the Journal of Perinatology as well as being a junior member and reviewer for the Society of Pediatric Research. He has received teaching awards during his training and received the 2015 Society of Pediatric Research Fellows’ Section Clinical Research Award as well as the Clinical Young Investigators’ Award from the Southern Society of Pediatric Research for a pilot randomized control trial comparing vitamin D dosing in extremely preterm infants during his fellowship.

Before his fellowship, during which he also obtained a certificate in Global Health and completed a Clinical and Translational Sciences program. Dr. Fort began his medical career at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Herdia in Lima, Peru before moving to the United States and completing an undergraduate degree at the University of North Carolina and Chapel Hill. He earned his medical degree from the University Of North Carolina School Of Medicine. He completed his pediatric residency at Duke University Medical Center. He worked as a community pediatrician and a hospitalist in the neonatal intensive care unit for three years at Duke, Jersey Shore Medical Center, and Gov. Juan F. Luis Hospital & Medical Center in the U.S Virgin Islands.