CPCE is accepting applications for the fall 2018 cycle of our Pilot Grant Program, now through October 1. More details are available under Funding Opportunities below or on our website.
Spotlight on: Sepsis Awareness Month
Pediatric sepsis is a major cause of mortality of children worldwide. It is a clinical syndrome that complicates an already severe infection or illness. Sepsis can be challenging to recognize because the signs and symptoms are similar to common febrile illnesses of childhood. These challenges are increased further due to the biologic complexity of sepsis. 

September is Sepsis Awareness Month, and we are putting the spotlight on CPCE’s pediatric sepsis research, which seeks to improve our ability to quickly and accurately identify children with sepsis and to reduce the unnecessary use of antibiotics accordingly. Below is a sample of sepsis-related work by CPCE investigators:


  • While timely and appropriate use of antibiotics can be lifesaving, as much as 50 percent of inpatient antibiotic use is inappropriate. Work led by Dr. Susan Coffin has aimed at identifying biomarkers for sepsis in order to guide antibiotic use in the pediatric intensive care unit.

  • Work by Drs. Karen Puopolo and Sagori Mukhopadhyay has focused on improving the evaluation of newborns for risk of neonatal early-onset sepsis (EOS). Over 500,000 newborns are evaluated for risk of EOS in the United States each year, with the vast majority ultimately found to be entirely healthy. Evaluation for EOS can impact mother-infant bonding and cost of newborn care, and early exposure to broad-spectrum antibiotics may impact immune system development. 

For more information about CPCE's sepsis research, visit our Pediatric Sepsis page . For more on Sepsis Awareness Month, visit the CDC or Sepsis Alliance .
Upcoming Events
Research Discovery Day
Date: October 4, 2018
Time: 10:00 am - 3:30 pm
Location: Roberts Center for Pediatric Research, Room 1120-A/B
Vendors, hands-on training, activities, CHOP pet therapy, and more! Full agenda TBD. Learn more here.

Philadelphia Symposium on Research Credibility & Excellence
Date: October 15, 2018
Time: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm
Location: The Union League of Philadelphia
The Philadelphia Symposium on Research Credibility & Excellence intends to convene leaders from academia, industry, federal agencies, and publishers to create a robust discussion of reproducibility and research integrity to reveal the “inside story” of how these issues are handled by institutions, journals, and federal agencies. Registration is now open. You can register at PhillyResearchSymposia.org.

Charting New Frontiers in Children's Health Policy & Practice
Date: October 22, 2018
Time: 8:00 am - 6:00 pm
Location: National Museum of American Jewish History
Join our PolicyLab colleagues as they convene regional and national leaders in children’s health policy to outline the emerging innovative solutions that will move the dial on child, adolescent and family health and well-being over the course of the next decade. The forum will feature morning and lunch-time plenaries about evidence-based policymaking at the national level, and breakout sessions with panel discussions highlighting innovative practice and policy on the most pressing issues facing child and adolescent health. Learn more here. 
CPCE in
the News!
Recent Publications
Clinical deterioration is difficult to detect in hospitalized children. The pediatric Rothman Index (pRI) is an early warning score that incorporates vital signs, laboratory studies, and nursing assessments to generate deterioration alerts. The objectives of this study from Dr. Chris Bonafide and colleagues were to evaluate the timing of pRI alerts and clinicians recognizing deterioration or escalating care prior to critical deterioration events (CDEs) and determine whether the parameters triggering alerts were clinically related to deterioration.

Dr. Kristen Feemster and colleagues from the CHOP Global Health Center collected nasopharyngeal swabs from children in Botswana to test for Streptococcus pneumoniae and common respiratory viruses. Nasopharyngeal colonization precedes infections caused by S. pneumoniae and a more detailed understanding of interactions between S. pneumoniae and the nasopharyngeal microbiota of children could inform strategies to prevent pneumococcal infections.

Active daily surveillance of central-line days (CLDs) in the assessment of rates of central-line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) is time-consuming and burdensome for healthcare workers. Sampling of denominator data is a method that could reduce the time necessary to conduct active surveillance.

Pediatric clinical practice often involves improving child health by changing parents' behavior. Strategies from behavioral economics - a field that leverages predictable patterns in human decision-making to overcome barriers to behavior change - can improve health outcomes in adults. Though more research is needed, the application of these approaches to parent behavior change in pediatric settings has the potential to improve the clinical effectiveness of child healthcare.

Bacteremia causes considerable morbidity among children with acute leukemia and those undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). This research from Dr. Brian Fisher and Children’s Oncology Group colleagues found that among children with acute leukemia receiving intensive chemotherapy, receipt of levofloxacin prophylaxis compared with no prophylaxis resulted in a significant reduction in bacteremia. However, there was no significant reduction in bacteremia for levofloxacin prophylaxis among children undergoing HSCT.

Funding Opportunities
The Thrasher Research Fund provides grants for clinical, hypothesis-driven research that offers substantial promise for meaningful advances in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of children's diseases, particularly research that offers broad-based applications. The fund awards small grants of up to $25,000 to new researchers to help them gain a foothold in the area of pediatric research. The program will consider a variety of research topics important to children's health. 

The Conquer Cancer Foundation works to conquer cancer by funding breakthrough cancer research and sharing cutting-edge knowledge with patients and physicians worldwide, improving quality of and access to care, and enhancing quality of life for all who are touched by cancer. To that end, CCF 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 for a patient-oriented project that could include a clinical research study and/or translational research involving human subjects.

The annual program is designed to stimulate highly innovative research from young investigators. To that end, three-year grants of up to $450,000 will be awarded to promote and support creative, paradigm-shifting cancer research unlikely to be funded through conventional channels.

The Caplan Foundation for Early Childhood supports innovative, creative projects and programs with the potential to significantly enhance the development, health, safety, education, and/or quality of life of children from birth through age five. The foundation provides funding in the areas of early childhood welfare, early childhood education and play, and parenting education.

The Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance Small Grant opportunity is available to support projects in development. New or early investigators are encouraged to apply and will be afforded special consideration. The research project can be a pilot, continuation of ongoing research, or other projects that move forward clinical or translational research that furthers the CARRA mission. Preference will be given to research that is collaborative in nature, which leverage current CARRA network resources and/or will further develop the CARRA network.

The Greenwall Faculty Scholars Program in Bioethics is a career-development award designed to enable junior faculty members to carry out innovative bioethics research. The program supports research that goes beyond current work in bioethics to help resolve pressing ethical issues in clinical care, biomedical research, and public policy, and creates a community that enhances future bioethics research by Greenwall scholars and alumni/ae.

The purpose of this program is to promote and support CHOP investigators in clinical effectiveness pilot research studies that will attract external support for large-scale studies. Selected proposals will be supported for up to a maximum of $10,000 for one year. Fellows and junior faculty from all CHOP departments and divisions, particularly fellows in their final year of fellowship transitioning to a faculty position at CHOP, are encouraged to apply.

Designated Frontier Programs must have three essential components: Distinctive clinical program that provides extraordinary care; associated translational research that advances the clinical program and has potential to generate the next breakthrough; and return on investment that can support our ongoing innovation in the years to come.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has issued a Call for Applications for its 2018 Culture of Health Prize, an annual program that honors outstanding community efforts and partnerships that are helping people live healthier lives. Through the program, up to ten communities will be awarded a $25,000 cash prize and have their accomplishments celebrated and shared broadly, with the goal of raising awareness and inspiring locally driven change across the country. Community partners can decide together how to use the funds to benefit their community.

Grants of up to $20,000 are available to help support the research of faculty members or post-doctoral researchers affiliated with non-profit human service organizations in the United States and Canada. Areas of interest to the Fund are: studies to develop, refine, evaluate, or disseminate innovative interventions designed to prevent or ameliorate major social, psychological, behavioral or public health problems affecting children, adults, couples, families, or communities.
 
The Gerber Foundation is accepting concept papers for research projects focused on improving the health, nutrition, and/or development of infants and young children. In particular, the foundation is looking for practical solutions that can be rapidly implemented on a broad scale and within a predictable time frame to clinical application. Major target areas include new diagnostic tools, new treatment regimens, symptom relief, preventative measures, assessment of deficiencies or excesses (vitamins, minerals, drugs, etc.), and risk assessment tools or measures for environmental hazards, trauma, etc. Grant amounts will range up to $350,000.

The goal of the American Kidney Fund Clinical Scientist in Nephrology (CSN) fellowship program is to improve the quality of care provided to kidney patients and to promote clinical research in nephrology. The CSN program enhances the training of nephrologists who wish to pursue an academic career and whose primary professional commitment is to scholarship in the provision of patient care. The fellowship may be granted yearly, with a maximum duration of two years for each fellowship. The maximum level of funding of $80,000 per year shall be used principally to support the candidate and his or her career development, including salary.

The annual program provides physicians who wish to pursue a career in cancer research with the opportunity for a protected research training experience under the mentorship of a highly qualified mentor after they have completed their clinical training. The award program will provide up to $460,000 over four years in financial support. In addition, the foundation will retire up to $100,000 of any outstanding medical school debt owed by a grant recipient.

The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is accepting applications for the 2015 Warren H. Pearse Women's Health Policy Research Award. The annual program includes a single grant of $10,000 for research that explores an aspect of healthcare policy that assists, defines, or restricts the ability of a physician to deliver health care to women in either the general population or a specific area. Applicants must be a junior fellow or fellow of the college at the time of application.

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: