In this Issue:

• Update from Executive Director Ann Anderson Berry, MD, PhD
• CHRI Strategy Update
• Mohan Krishnan, PhD, Receives NIH R01 Grant for Research into the Connection Between RBC Transfusions and Brain Inflammation in Premature Infants
• NEAR4KIDS Leadership Opens Up Research Opportunities for Andrea Talukdar, MD
• Research Team Publishes Findings on Osteogenesis Imperfecta: How Genetic Variants Associate with Clinical Outcomes 
• Disseminating Discoveries - January Publications
• Register for the Pediatric Academic Workshop
• Register Now: NAECR Knowledge: Using AI in Early Childhood Research"
• Funding Opportunities
• Welcome to New CHRI Members Who Joined In January

Child Health Research Institute (CHRI) leadership is implementing the strategic plan showcased at the November and December 2024 town hall events. Thank you to everyone who provided their input. The strategic plan lays out the priorities for CHRI’s future and the strategies and metrics to achieve success. You can view the plan and a recording of a townhall meeting in the CHRI member portal.

The CHRI member portal serves as a gateway for research resources exclusive to CHRI members. The portal offers access to:

• CHRI grant calendar
• Writing and grant resources
• Recorded seminars and presentations
• CHRI templates

Use your UNMC credentials to access the portal. All other members should sign in using the account information they received when joining. If you need support, contact chri@unmc.edu.

During her fellowship training, Andrea Talukdar, MD, assistant professor, Division of Pediatric Critical Care, UNMC, and Children’s Nebraska intensivist, played a key role in the implementation of the National Emergency Airway Registry for Children (NEAR4KIDS) at American Family Children’s Hospital at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. NEAR4KIDS is a multi-center, prospective registry for advanced airway management in pediatric intensive care units. The primary goal of the project is to improve advanced airway management practice for critically ill children through quality improvement (QI). NEAR4KIDS also functions as a research collaborative for airway management in pediatric intensive care units, allowing participating institutions to access collaborative-wide data for research inquiries.

When Dr. Talukdar was hired as a provider at Children’s and faculty member for UNMC, she saw an opportunity to launch NEAR4KIDS in Nebraska. Jayesh Thakker, MD, chief, Children’s Nebraska Division of Pediatric Critical Care and UNMC Division of Pediatric Critical Care, provided divisional backing for the program with data entry support from Stacey Powers, senior administrative assistant within the division.

In 2020, Dr. Talukdar worked with the principal investigator for NEAR4KIDS, Akira Nishisaki, MD, professor of Clinical Anesthesiology, Critical Care and Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, to bring the program to Nebraska. After collecting data to establish the Critical Care center’s baseline, Dr. Talukdar introduced the first NEAR4KIDS QI bundle in 2021. The QI bundle consists of an intubation airway safety preplanning checklist, timeout and debrief. Additional QI initiatives followed with apneic oxygenation and coaching language teaching.

Under the program, local data is continuously shared with the other centers to facilitate ongoing monitoring and improvement. These initiatives have led to a significant reduction in intubation-related adverse events, enhanced training opportunities for learners and access to a robust database of insights, ultimately improving patient safety and care quality.

The information amassed through the NEAR4KIDS program has generated dozens of studies by researchers from the participating institutions. Dr. Talukdar envisions her colleagues at Children’s and UNMC fully leveraging the database’s potential. 

“Anyone interested in intubation research can use NEAR4KIDS data for their analysis,” she explained. “Furthermore, researchers involved in the project can collaborate on studies initiated by other NEAR4KIDS institutions, expanding opportunities for impactful research.”

NEAR4KIDS has been central to Dr. Talukdar’s own research by introducing her to opportunities to lead or join additional studies. Through NEAR4KIDS, she became active in Pediatric Acute Lung Injury and Sepsis Investigators (PALISI), a network for multicenter clinical and translational researchers. Dr. Talukdar joined new projects and gained vital mentorship exposure through her PALISA membership and NEAR4KIDS involvement.

She is currently directing or participating in multiple research projects, including: 

• VentLib4Kids: A multicenter research and QI collaborative focused on implementing the recently published Pediatric Ventilator Liberation guidelines [pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov] through various QI initiatives.
• SMART PICU: A multicenter National Institutes of Health-funded prospective interventional study that converts the primary NEAR4KIDS bundle into an EPIC application with clinical decision support.
• P-WIN: A multicenter prospective interventional study that aims to predict and reduce clinical deterioration events (CDEs). This project will use a smart dashboard with risk estimates, explanations and action suggestions to optimize early intervention, reduce alarm fatigue and reduce CDEs.
• Etiometry extubation failure prediction study: Dr. Talukdar’s own muti-center retrospective study that analyzes the data patterns and predictive analytics during spontaneous breathing trials to determine if a patient is likely to be successful with an extubation attempt.

“I'm so thankful for all the doors that NEAR4KIDS has opened for me,” she said. "I can't wait to see the research projects that will come from our participation."

Danita Velasco, MD, Assistant Professor, Division of Pediatric Genetics

A team of Child Health Research Institute (CHRI) researchers, together with CHRI staff members, recently published an article in JBMR Plus¹ (a journal of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research) that describes their genetics study in individuals with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI). The collaborative work was led by Maegen Wallace, MD, formerly of the UNMC’s Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation, and Danita Velasco, MD, of the UNMC’s Division of Pediatric Genetics. UNMC medical student Jay Byrd was the lead author.

OI is a connective tissue disorder causing bone fragility, with consequences that can include skeletal deformity, short stature and vulnerability to fractures. Most people diagnosed with OI have variant sequences in two dominant genes that code for the alpha chains of type I collagen. These genes are COL1A1 and COL1A2. A smaller set of OI patients – the non-COL1A1/1A2 group – have normal copies of these genes, and their condition is driven by recessive variants located in other genes.

The goal of the team’s project was to learn how different genetic signatures might correlate with various clinical manifestations of OI. This would give clinicians a richer base of evidence for counseling pediatric patients and their families and for making more informed decisions about clinical care. The research team reviewed charts of 294 patients treated at Children’s Nebraska between 1990 and 2022. Most of these individuals possessed COL1A1/A2 variants, but 26 of them (8.8%) were in the non-COL1A1/A2 group.

The two groups of OI patients shared several similarities, such as joint hypermobility and a history of common treatments like bisphosphonate infusions or rod placements. However, children in the rarer non-COL1A1/1A2 group displayed notable differences. They were more likely to have short stature and a history of scoliosis—although they were not more likely to undergo scoliosis surgery. Additionally, expressive language disorders or delays were more prevalent in this group compared to their counterparts.

The authors highlight several important clinical implications of their findings. For instance, patients with non-COL1A1/1A2 gene variants may benefit from more proactive x-ray screenings for scoliosis. Additionally, they emphasize the importance of informing medical providers that expressive language disorders or delays are more prevalent in patients with these variants. This awareness can lead to earlier and more effective interventions, ultimately improving patient outcomes.

¹ Byrd JJ, White AC, Nissen CG, Schissel M, Van Ormer M, Velasco D, Wallace M. Genotype-phenotype correlations in 294 pediatric patients with osteogenesis imperfecta. JBMR Plus. 2024 Sep 30;8(11):ziae125. 

Comparison of gait deviation index (GDI) and gait variability index (GVI) measured by marker-based and markerless motion capture systems in children with cerebral palsy [sciencedirect.com] (CP). Poomulna J, Knarr BA, Dutt V, Kingston DC. Gait and Posture. 2025;115:7-13.

* Department of Biomechanics, UNO

Diagnostic Performance of AAP-Recommended Inflammatory Markers in Febrile Infants Aged 60 Days or Younger [publications.aap.org]. Yankova LC, McDaniel CE, Kerns E, Shine A, Ruiz BA, Caruso HA, Aronson PL. Pediatrics. 2025;155(1).

* Division of Health System Sciences

Fetal Fentanyl Syndrome – Only the “tip of the iceberg”? [clinicalkey.com] Mirnics K. European Neuropsychopharmacology. 2025;90:69-70.

* Munroe-Meyer Institute for Genetics and Rehabilitation

Graph Neural Networks for Analyzing Trauma-Related Brain Structure in Children and Adolescents: A Pilot Study. [mdpi.com] Jeong H, Kang M, McLeay S, Blair RJR, Chung U, Hwang S. Applied Sciences (Switzerland). 2025;15(1).

* Department of Psychiatry

Pediatric Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD): Trends, Mortality, and Socioeconomic Disparities in the U.S., 1998–202 [pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]0. Wasuwanich P, So JM, Sadek M, Jarasvaraparn C, Rajborirug S, Quiros-Tejeira RE, Karnsakul W. Children. 2025;12(1).

* Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition

The UNMC Department of Pediatrics and Child Health Research Institute will host a Pediatric Academic Workshop on April 11 at Children's Nebraska. The event will present effectual strategies and new tools for communicating your research and scholarly activity with diverse audiences, including lay public, foundations and social media networks.

Planned topics include:

• Connecting with your desired audience(s)
• Maximizing social media posts
• Speaking to the lay audience
• Taking impactful photographs
• Countering misinformation
• Storytelling and narrative medicine
• Communicating with potential donors and foundations

How can early childhood researchers incorporate artificial intelligence into their work? In this interactive session of the spring NAECR Knowledge event, researchers will share strategies, tools and best practices.

There will be time for questions and conversation.

This virtual event is free but registration is required.

Presentation Details

Thursday, March 13, 2025

Noon – 1 p.m. CDT

Virtual via Zoom

Zoom link will be distributed to registrants prior to the event.

NAECR  was established to generate and support interdisciplinary research to benefit young children birth to age 8 and enhance the environments within which they learn and grow.

If you have questions about this event, please contact naecr@unl.edu.

• John Ada Appiah, MD, Senior Specialist, Paediatric Critical Care, Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital
• Mabruka Alfaidi, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, UNMC Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology
• Angela Delecaris, MD, Associate Professor, UNMC Division of Pulmonology and Sleep Medicine
• Ilissa Frye, Graduate Research Assistant, UNMC
• Snehal Gajiwala, MD, Med-Peds Fellow, UNMC
• Adedayo Ogunware, PhD student, Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology
• Emily Rappolt, Registered Nurse, Children’s Nebraska
• Melissa Suh, MD, Assistant Professor, UNMC Department of Surgery, Division of Pediatric Surgery
• Elizabeth Thomas, Biochemistry Student at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• Ella Turley, Medical Student, UNMC
• Lisa White, MD, Pediatrician, Children’s Physicians