Shelley M. Lawrence, MD

Dr. Lawrence received her medical degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine and completed her Pediatric residency and Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Fellowship at the Oklahoma Children’s Hospital. Following fellowship, she spent the first six years of her professional career in a high acuity, tertiary referral, and private practice facility. Upon returning to academics in 2010, she received a Master of Science degree in Clinical and Translational Sciences (2013). She is board-certified in Pediatrics and Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine.


She is currently an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Utah and is in the Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at Primary Children’s Medical Center. Her clinical interests include neonatal sepsis, antibiotic stewardship, and the epidemiology of congenital cytomegalovirus, neonatal herpesvirus, and congenital syphilis infections. She is also working towards universal newborn screening for congenital cytomegalovirus infection to enable rapid identification and intervention services to children at risk for sensorineural hearing loss.

Her research interests lie in understanding the fundamental mechanisms of bacterial pathogenesis and the neonatal innate immune system, with particular focus on neonatal neutrophil function. She is also skilled at designing and successfully completing large clinical studies, with primary goals of translating innovative diagnostics and therapeutics from the bench to bedside. She has active NIH-funded research in the validation of new technology by MelioLabs in the rapid and low-cost detection and identification of pathogens (bacterial, fungal, and viral) in a single, low volume patient sample. She is also nationally funded in the investigation of host cell-membrane wrapped nanoparticles, engineered by Cellics Therapeutics, as a novel adjunctive therapeutic for neonatal sepsis.