Philip Sunshine

Philip Sunshine's primary interests are in the areas of neonatal nutrition and developmental gastroenterology. The use of parenteral nutrition in very low birth weight infants, and the introduction of early enteral feeding to stimulate gastrointestinal maturation are specific areas of his investigative endeavors. In a career that has spanned over five decades, Dr Sunshine has authored numerous important publications, including those describing how lactose malabsorption can result from acute...See more

Philip Sunshine's primary interests are in the areas of neonatal nutrition and developmental gastroenterology. The use of parenteral nutrition in very low birth weight infants, and the introduction of early enteral feeding to stimulate gastrointestinal maturation are specific areas of his investigative endeavors. In a career that has spanned over five decades, Dr Sunshine has authored numerous important publications, including those describing how lactose malabsorption can result from acute gastroenteritis, published in Pediatrics in 1964, fundamental contributions on intestinal disaccharides in an early report in Science, also in 1964. In another seminal paper, Dr Sunshine, along with his mentor, Norman Kretchmer, and Otakar Koldosky, described the cellular migration of intestinal epithelial cells in suckling and weaned rats. This Nature paper was the first to show that newborns had delayed cellular migration, effecting their capacity to recover from injury and digest disaccharidases. Dr Sunshine has received numerous honors throughout his career, including the Virginia Apgar Award in 2001. He is a member of many professional societies, including the American Pediatric Society. He served as Editor of the Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine exam from 1981 to 2001. See less