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Spotlight on:
Dr. Emily Gregory

Emily Gregory, MD, MHS recently received a grant from the March of Dimes titled, “Leveraging pediatric infant visits to improve access to LARC for teen mothers.” Unintended pregnancies account for 73% of teen pregnancies in Pennsylvania. Moreover, 20% of teen births occur to teens who are already mothers. The project aims to identify teen mothers’ contraceptive needs when they visit pediatric clinics for infant care, and connect the mothers to clinicians who can provide long-acting reversible contraception (LARC). 

Dr. Gregory is an Instructor of Pediatrics in the Division of General Pediatrics at CHOP. Joining her on this collaborative project are Andrea Bailer, MSN, CRNP, director of the Family Planning program at CHOP and the Advanced Practice Nurse Manager for the CHOP Primary Care Network; Aletha Akers, MD, MPH, director of the Adolescent Gynecology Consulting Service at CHOP; and Robert Grundmeier, MD, Director of Clinical Informatics for CHOP’s Department of Biomedical and Health Informatics, who will supervise the creation and implementation of an EHR-based tool. 

Watch news coverage of the new project via CBS Philly .
Upcoming Events
Talking Diversity: Cultural Perspectives of CHOP Nurse Observers in the Middle East
Date: August 22, 2017
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 pm
Location: Roberts Center, 1st floor, room 1-120AB
Cultural nuances are extremely important when interacting with or providing care for people from other countries and with different backgrounds. Relationships are often distressed by mutual misinterpretation of culturally influenced values and communication styles. This session will highlight the first-hand experiences of CHOP nurses who traveled to the Middle East to learn more about the perspectives, values, and behaviors of this patient-family population. Click here to learn more.

2017-2018 Faculty Luncheon Series Session 1: Presentations by the 2017 Awardees for Excellence in Mentoring Research Trainees
Date: September 8, 2017
Time: 11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Location: Abramson Research Center 123-ABC
Presenters:  Daniel Licht, MD, Matthew Weitzman, PhD , Joanne Wood, MD, MSHP

Symposium on Integrative Health: Advances in Research and Evidence-based Practice
Date: September 15, 2017
Time: 7:00 am - 5:00 pm
Location: Colket Translational Research Building
The evidence base for integrative medicine interventions is growing, and patients and families are increasingly using integrative modalities and expecting physicians and allied health professionals to offer guidance on their use. This one-day symposium will offer healthcare practitioners a review of the evidence on common integrative modalities and their application to clinical practice. For more information and to register, click here.

Penn LDI 50th Anniversary Symposium
Date: October 5 - 6, 2017
Location: The Inn at Penn, 3600 Sansom Street
Join in a collaborative exchange of ideas on novel solutions to today’s health care challenges, together with leaders in health care policy and practice from academia, government, and the private sector. For more information and to register, click here. 

CHOP Pediatric Global Health Conference
Date: October 6 - 7, 2017
Location: CHOP Colket Translational Research Building
This conference will explore the state of immigrant and refugee health from a global, national and local perspective. Attendees will gain clinical, advocacy, public health and research tools to better serve these populations. Cases, discussions and stories will help us better understand the context of those who leave their homes seeking a better life. Find additional information online here. 
CPCE in
the News!
Recent Publications
Complement-dependent cytotoxicity crossmatch (CDCXM) is used for evaluation of preformed HLA-specific antibodies in patients undergoing heart transplantation. Flow cytometry crossmatch (FCXM) is a more sensitive assay and used with increasing frequency. Dr. Rossano and colleagues analyzed the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) database to determine the clinical relevance of a positive FCXM in the context of negative CDCXM in heart transplantation.

Vaccine acceptance is a critical component of sustainable immunization programs, yet rates of vaccine hesitancy are rising. Increased access to misinformation through media and anti-vaccine advocacy is an important contributor to hesitancy in the United States and other high-income nations with robust immunization programs. This study explored knowledge and attitudes regarding vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases among caregivers and immunization providers in Botswana, the Dominican Republic, and Greece to examine how access to information impacts reported vaccine acceptance.

Tobramycin is frequently used for treatment of bronchopneumonia in patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). Variability in tobramycin clearance (CL) is high in this population with few reliable approaches to guide dosing. Dr. Downes and colleagues sought to evaluate the pharmacokinetics of once-daily intravenous tobramycin in patients with CF and test the influence of covariates on tobramycin CL, including serum creatinine (SCr) and urinary biomarkers: neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL), retinol-binding protein (RBP) and kidney injury molecule-1 (KIM-1).

The families of oncology patients requiring intensive care often face increasing complexity in communication with their providers, particularly when patients are cared for by providers from different disciplines. This research aimed to describe the experiences and challenges faced by pediatric oncologists and intensivists, and how the oncologist-intensivist relationship impacts communication and initiation of goals of care discussions with patients and families. 

This pilot study assessed the feasibility of studying the comparative effectiveness of the Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance (CARRA) consensus treatment plans (CTPs) for systemic Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) using an observational registry, and demonstrated successful implementation of CTPs using the CARRA registry infrastructure. Having demonstrated feasibility, a larger study using CTP response to better determine the relative effectiveness of treatments for new-onset systemic JIA is now underway.

Funding Opportunities
The Elsa U. Pardee Foundation funds research to investigators in United States non-profit institutions proposing research directed toward identifying new treatments or cures for cancer. The Foundation particularly encourages grant applications for a one year period which will allow establishment of capabilities of new cancer researchers, or new cancer approaches by established cancer researchers.

Grants of up to $130,000 over two years will be awarded to junior faculty researchers for innovative translational research projects in hematology/oncology, with a focus on hematologic malignancies, that can be either based around a clinical trial with strong correlative science or laboratory investigation. To be eligible, applicants must hold an M.D., D.O., Ph.D., or equivalent degree at time of award and be within five years of initial faculty appointment.

As the charitable foundation for the American College of Chest Physicians, the CHEST Foundation has a mission of championing lung health by supporting clinical research, patient education, and community service. Grants of up to $15,000 will be awarded to healthcare professionals in nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations who donate their time and medical expertise to community-based projects that demonstrate a clear positive impact on the lung health of that community and have the potential for long-term sustainability and reproducibility.

CCF currently is accepting applications for its Career Development Award, an annual research program that provides funding to clinical investigators who have received their initial faculty appointment to establish an independent clinical cancer research program. A single grant of $200,000 over three years will be awarded in support of research with a patient-oriented focus. To be eligible, applicants must be a physician within the first to third year of a full-time primary faculty appointment in a clinical department at an academic medical institution, without an existing career development award (such as K23, K08).

The American Association for Cancer Research is accepting applications for its AACR NextGen Grants for Transformative Cancer Research program. The annual program is designed to to stimulate highly innovative research from young investigators. Three-year grants of up to $450,000 will be awarded in support of creative, paradigm-shifting cancer research that might not be funded through conventional channels. To be eligible, applicants must have a doctoral degree. At the start of the grant term on July 1, 2018, applicants must hold a tenure-eligible appointment at the level of assistant professor; have held this appointment for no more than three years; and work at an academic, medical, or research institution anywhere in the world. AACR membership is required.

The Caplan Foundation for Early Childhood is intended to be an incubator of promising research and development projects that may ultimately enhance the development, health, safety, education or quality of life of children from infancy through seven years of age across the country. Each of its grants is made with the expectation that a successful project outcome will be of significant interest to other investigators or developers, within the grantee’s field of endeavor, and will be amenable to beneficial application or adaptation elsewhere. In essence, the foundation’s goal is to provide seed money for those imaginative endeavors, addressed to the needs of young children, which appear most likely to bear fruit on a national scale.

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) will release a new Funding Announcement (PFA) on Implementation of Effective Shared Decision Making Approaches in Practice Settings on September 1, 2017.

Last year, the NIH received approximately $30 billion in federal support. In spite of this amount, about 42,500 grants were not funded. To address these unfunded proposals, the NIH has a new Pilot Program that is designed to match researchers with nonprofit disease Foundations or with investments from private companies. Through a new collaboration between the NIH and the private contractor Leidos, researchers can now upload their unfunded NIH Proposals into an online portal at the Online Partnership to Accelerate Research (OnPAR). Foundations and other potential funders can review the NIH scores, and decide whether they might be interested in funding the Projects. Currently, this Pilot Program allows researchers with priority scores better than the 30th percentile to submit their abstracts. Interested Foundations might ask that a researcher send their full NIH Application along with its scores. The consensus opinion is that there are a lot of worthy grants being submitted to the NIH, but there is only so much funding available. OnPAR is one way of trying to match researchers with private Foundations. 
About CPCE
We are a pediatric research center dedicated to discovering and sharing knowledge about best practices in pediatric care by facilitating, organizing and centralizing the performance of clinical effectiveness research -- research aimed at understanding the best ways to prevent, diagnose and treat diseases in children. CPCE’s multidisciplinary team conducts research on a diverse range of clinical effectiveness topics grouped within four areas of research: