August 9, 2023

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UPDATES FROM RESEARCH ADMINISTRATION

Introducing the In Pursuit Podcast

Episode 1: How Scientists Help Keep Kids Safe During Pandemics

The inaugural episode of the In Pursuit podcast is available now. Presented by Stanley Manne Children's Research Institute, In Pursuit features research perspectives from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.

In this episode, host Dr. Patrick Seed tackles the topic of infectious diseases with Dr. Larry Kociolek (pictured). Kociolek is a born-and-raised Chicagoan and a physician-scientist at Manne Research Institute. He is dedicated to understanding the spread of microbes in community and healthcare settings and tackling the big research questions that might change how we keep patients safer in the hospital from infectious complications.

Listen and subscribe on your favorite streaming platform.

Advancing Pediatric Surgical Care at the Intersection of Quality Improvement and Research 

View the latest Manne Research Institute President's Message from Dr. Patrick Seed

Through data-driven insights and collaboration, Dr. Mehul Raval (pictured) and the surgical team at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago team have improved outcomes, sparked new research, and broadened our understanding of how to treat appendicitis in children. Read more in the latest Stanley Manne Children's Research Institute President's Message from Dr. Patrick Seed.

Jessica Huening Poppenk, JD

Senior Director, Office of Research Integrity and Compliance

Jessie Huening Poppenk has been promoted to Senior Director of the Office of Research Integrity and Compliance. In the new role, Jessie will lead Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute’s compliance and integrity program in partnership with other operational and strategic leaders and control functions. She will also help to develop and implement the research compliance and integrity program to foster compliance with research responsibilities among researchers and offices across the research institute. Jessie has been working at Lurie Children’s since September 2021. She earned a JD from Seton Hall University School of Law and a BA from North Carolina State University. 

Emily Golbeck, MBA

Director of Operations for Community, Population Health, and Outcomes Pillar and SCHORE

Emily Golbeck has been named Director of Operations for the Community, Population Health, and Outcomes Research Pillar and the Smith Child Health Outcomes, Research, and Evaluation Center (SCHORE). Prior to serving in this role in an interim capacity, Emily was involved in building and leading the Smith Child Health Catalyst and overseeing several research projects and initiatives. As Director of Operations, Emily will be responsible for providing leadership, coordination, and oversight of business operations, projects, and initiatives for the pillar and center, focusing on the cultivation of new interdisciplinary collaborations, development of innovative research activities, and support of the investigators and research teams working within the domains of community, population health, and health services research. Emily has been working at Lurie Children’s for eight years. She held clinical research positions in Neuro-Oncology and Epilepsy before moving to the SCHORE Center. Emily is a Society of Clinical Research Associates-certified clinical research professional and earned an MBA from National Louis University and a BS in Biological Sciences from DePaul University.

Amanda Schall, MA

Director, Research Support Office

Amanda Schall has been named Director of the Research Support Office. Amanda joined Lurie Children’s almost 10 years ago, first serving as a Research Manager in Adolescent Medicine and then serving as the division’s Manager of Division Operations. In 2021, she was named Assistant Director of the Research Support Office. Since joining the research institute, Amanda has brought both leadership and inspiration to the office. In her new role as Director, she will be responsible for managing Research Administrative Managers, Research Grant Specialists, and Research Portfolio Managers. These teams provide front line support to Principal Investigators for pre-award activities, post-award portfolio management across the research enterprise, and organizational assistance to the research neighborhoods in the research institute. She will continue to work in close coordination with the other research administration teams and the division and department partners to identify and improve research administrative support and maintain a fierce commitment to improving the service provision of the teams. Amanda has a BA in Anthropology and History, MA in Applied Anthropology, and GCPM in Public Administration.

Kenya Satchell 

Senior Sponsored Programs Administrator, Office of Sponsored Programs  

The Office of Sponsored Programs recently welcomed Kenya Satchell to the team as Senior Sponsored Programs Administrator. Kenya has more than four years of research and sponsored programs experience and is eager to learn more about the ever-changing world of sponsored programs. Prior to joining Lurie Children’s, Kenya worked as a Post Award Administrator in the primate center at Emory University. She also worked as a Post Award Administrator in the Office of Sponsored Programs at Clark Atlanta University where she supported researchers in the business, social work, education, and arts and science schools and the Center for Cancer Research and Therapeutic Development. She has a background in education and earned a BS from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. 

SCIENCE SHOWCASE

Manne Research Institute Names Awardees of the Spring 2023 Internal Funding Opportunities

Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute is pleased to announce the recipients of the Spring 2023 internal funding opportunities. For the Spring 2023 cycle, candidates were allowed to submit proposals for seven award categories:

• Home Health Environment Springboard Award is for up to $25,000 to seed new research around an important contemporary topic with the intention of getting it up and running in a short amount of time, followed by the pursuit of extramural funding. The award is for a six-month period.
• Interdisciplinary Colloquia Award is for up to $5,000 to bring together multi-disciplinary investigators from Manne Research Institute and Northwestern University to share scientific knowledge and envision future research related to children’s health research. The award is for a one-year period.
• Kenneth C. Griffin Research Catalyst Award is for up to $100,000 to support novel preclinical and translational research. This should be an innovative research project that results in pilot data to support a competitive future extramural funding application with a preclinical or translational research focus. The award is for a one-year period.
• Mary J.C. Hendrix Outstanding Graduate Student Award recognizes a Manne Research Institute graduate student for a high level of scholastic achievement, research engagement, and productivity with $5,000 to support the awardee’s research. The award is made possible through the ongoing generosity of the Children’s Research Fund. The award is for a one-year period.
• Proposal Revision Award is for up to $100,000 to support the preparation of a revision and resubmission of an application for federal research support. The award is for a one-year period.
• Scientific Advocacy Award is for up to $1,000 per year to advocate for children’s health research at the regional and national level and raise the stature of Manne Research Institute and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago investigators in scientific advocacy. The award is for a one-year period.
• Visionary Award is for up to $75,000 to support potentially paradigm-shifting research. This should be a visionary idea with a new, multi-institutional team supporting it. The award is for a one-year period

Bharat Bhushan, PhD

Research Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology (Pediatric Otolaryngology), Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Award type: Home Health Environment Springboard Award

Title: Delayed Sleep-Wake and Family Dynamics

Amount funded: $21,000

Adolescents with delayed sleep-wake phase disorder, the most common circadian rhythm disorder in adolescents, experience extreme difficulty falling asleep and waking up. Disruptions in adolescents’ sleep-wake cycles can affect their well-being, academic performance, behavior, and mental health, as well as affect caregivers’ sleep and family relationships. There is little data on the impact of delayed sleep-wake phase disorder on caregivers’ sleep-wake timing and how caregiver sleep, family dynamics, and household environment contribute to treatment response, long-term adherence, and outcomes. The Home Health Environment Springboard Award will allow Dr. Bhushan to incorporate specific conceptual and clinical research innovations to test the effect of real life characteristics of family dynamics on poor adherence to delayed sleep-wake phase disorder treatment among adolescents. This will be the first study to determine if caregiver involvement is associated with treatment adherence in adolescents with delayed sleep-wake phase disorder.   

Michael Carroll, PhD

Director, Computational Informatics and Visualization Laboratory, Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute, and Research Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Award type: Visionary Award

Title: Improving Child Abuse Detection Using Narrative Data within Clinical Datasets

Amount funded: $74,997

Child maltreatment is a leading cause of trauma-related death in the United States, and nearly half of all child maltreatment fatalities are attributable to physical abuse. Dr. Carroll’s proposed research project builds on the research program led by Mary Clyde Pierce, MD, and Kim Kaczor, MS, of Lurie Children’s that aims to discriminate between accidental and abusive trauma in children. The Visionary Award will allow Dr. Carroll and the research team to create and validate analytical models using natural language processing to improve the accuracy, reach, and timeliness of child abuse identification. They expect that the developed models will improve the accuracy of abuse screening in non-specialty care settings by improving sensitivity and increasing specificity, and ultimately reduce biases that exist in current abuse identification strategies. The proposed research project will result in developed models and will allow the study team to accomplish necessary preliminary work that can be leveraged for an extramural, federally funded application.

Kristin Kan, MD, MPH, MSc

Attending Physician, Advanced General Pediatrics and Primary Care, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics (Advanced General Pediatrics and Primary Care), Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Award type: Home Health Environment Springboard Award

Title: Pediatric Asthma and Home Indoor Ventilation and Air Quality Monitoring (P-HIVE) Study

Amount funded: $25,000

Asthma is a leading pediatric chronic condition that affects an estimated 5.5 million children in the United States. While asthma is shaped by environmental and genetic factors, evidence shows that indoor air contaminants impact asthma severity, particularly in the home environment. Currently, there is no scalable and sustainable routine, continuous air quality measurement of the home environment among families with children with asthma. The Home Health Environment Springboard Award will support Dr. Kan’s study assessing the feasibility and acceptability of using digital in-home air quality sensors for continuous data monitoring of indoor air in the homes of families with children with asthma. The findings will support an NIH R-series proposal with a larger clinical population. The ultimate goal of the work is to improve the asthma outcomes of children by extending the reach of healthcare technologies into the home to understand the daily experiences and exposures of patients.

Mehul Raval, MD, MS

Attending Physician, Pediatric Surgery, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, and Associate Professor of Surgery (Pediatric Surgery) and Pediatrics, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Award type: Visionary Award

Title: Adaptations to Support Implementation Readiness of Enhanced Neonatal Surgical Recovery (ENSuRe)

Amount funded: $74,780

Enhanced recovery protocols for surgical patients improve patient outcomes, including reducing length of hospital stay, decreasing opioid use, and lowering costs. Neonates undergoing surgery represent a highly fragile patient population that could benefit from implementation of enhanced recovery protocols; however, implementation of enhanced recovery protocols for pediatric surgery face challenges. The Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) Society recently published a Neonatal ERAS Guideline for perioperative care in neonatal intestinal surgery. A single institution multidisciplinary team previously identified strategies and developed tools and compliance measures to support implementation of the guideline, but since the development and testing of these were limited (single institution), contextual adaptations will be needed. The Visionary Award will support Dr. Raval’s study in which he will collect data to accelerate the implementation of the Neonatal ERAS Guideline for intestinal surgery and inform a future, multicenter clinical trial.

Jonathan Samet, MD

Division Head, Body Imaging, and Section Head, Musculoskeletal Imaging, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, and Associate Professor of Radiology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Award type: Kenneth C. Griffin Research Catalyst Award

Title: Quantitative MRI Assessment of Bone Marrow Cellularity to Detect Diffuse Malignancy and Monitor Response to Treatment Using MRI-Fat Fraction Technique

Amount funded: $99,320

Bone marrow interpretation on MRI is challenging and currently non-quantitative, which can cause errors that lead to delays in diagnosis of diffuse malignant marrow processes. Conversely, false positive interpretation of marrow can cause unnecessary procedures and stress to families. To address this clinical practice gap, Dr. Samet and his research team developed a novel technique, MRI with fat-fraction, which provides quantitative assessment of bone marrow cellularity. The Kenneth C. Griffin Research Catalyst Award will support a pilot study that will test the ability of the MRI with fat-fraction technique to diagnose hypercellular malignant marrow in children with diffuse marrow replacement processes and predict responsiveness to therapy. Dr. Samet and his research team will compare the MRI with fat-fraction to histologic fat-fraction from the current gold standard, bone marrow biopsy. Their long-term goal is for MRI with fat-fraction to serve as a virtual bone marrow biopsy to improve detection of malignant marrow and monitor treatment response.

Elizabeth Tsui

PhD candidate, Laronda Laboratory and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Award type: Mary J.C. Hendrix Outstanding Graduate Student Award

Amount funded: $5,000

With a research focus on ovarian biology across the pubertal transition, Tsui is performing basic science research work that aims to advance the quality of life of pediatric cancer survivors. Through her thesis work conducted in the laboratory of Monica M. Laronda, PhD, Tsui works to understand the pediatric ovarian microenvironment by using skills in primary cell isolation and culture, immunohistochemistry, follicle culture, and multiple imaging modalities, including second harmonic generation microscopy and multiplex immunofluorescence imaging. She leveraged these skills to publish a first-author article in Fertility and Sterility Reports characterizing structural changes that occur in human ovaries across the pubertal transition. Inspired by her thesis work in collaboration with the Fertility and Hormone Preservation and Restoration Program at Lurie Children’s, she plans to pursue a career serving patients as both a practicing pediatric oncologist advocating for awareness of oncofertility and a leader of an academic research laboratory specializing in reproductive science.

Katz and Manne Research Institute Summer Scholar Program Culminates With 2023 Poster Symposium

The 2023 Katz and Manne Research Institute Summer Scholars Program culminated on August 1 with the program's annual poster symposium. The summer scholar program provides undergraduate students experience in research related to childhood health and disease through the ongoing generosity of the Robert Louis Katz Medical Research Foundation and Manne Research Institute. The scholars spend eight weeks working daily with their faculty mentor and participating in a weekly course to learn about scientific presentations and careers in science.

The poster symposium enjoyed a full house as the students showcased their work and gained experience presenting to a scientific audience. Closing remarks were delivered by Manne Research Institute President and Chief Research Officer Patrick Seed, MD, PhD.

• View the 2023 posters
• View the 2023 Katz Program Book

RP Community Day Brings Faculty and Staff Together to Feature Science and Achievement at Manne Research Institute

The 2023 Research Professionals Community Day was held on July 27, featuring presentations and events by and for the investigators and research staff at Manne Research Institute. Drs. Juan Espinoza, Faith Summersett Williams, Audrey Brewer, and Neeraj Patel presented on topics aligned with the day's theme of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Research. The presentations were preceded by a robust poster session in the Lurie Children's Sky Garden, a resource fair featuring research institute staff on hand to demonstrate the scope of support available to investigators and their teams, and the RP Exemplar Award announcements (see below). The Research Professionals Engagement and Mentoring Committee extends its gratitude to all who presented and attended.

NEWS FROM THE RESEARCH PILLARS

Neonatal Stem Cells from the Heart Could Treat Crohn’s Disease

Study found reduced intestinal inflammation and wound healing in a mouse model 

Research from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago found that direct injection of neonatal mesenchymal stem cells, derived from heart tissue discarded during surgery, reduces intestinal inflammation and promotes wound healing in a mouse model of Crohn’s disease-like ileitis, an illness marked by chronic intestinal inflammation and progressive tissue damage. 

The study, published in the journal Advanced Therapeutics, offers a promising new and alternative treatment approach that avoids the pitfalls of current Crohn’s disease medications, including diminishing effectiveness, severe side effects and increased risk of gastrointestinal dysfunction.

“Neonatal cardiac-derived mesenchymal stem cells have been used in a clinical trial to repair an injured heart, but this is the first time these potent cells have been studied in an inflammatory intestinal disease model,” said senior author Arun Sharma, PhD, from Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute at Lurie Children’s who is the Director of Pediatric Urological Regenerative Medicine and Surgical Research, and Research Associate Professor of Urology and Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and the McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University. “Our results are encouraging and definitely provide a new platform to potentially treat aspects of chronic inflammatory bowel diseases.”  

Child Car Seat Installation Errors Common Even with Top-Rated Seats

Parents encouraged to seek out child passenger safety technicians for training on correct child car seat installation

Errors in installation of child car seats are common, even with seats that have a five-star rating for ease of use, according to a study published in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention. The study found that although the rating system was a suitable indicator of ease of use, with fewer errors detected when parents installed seats that had higher ratings, more efforts are needed to ensure optimal safety for young passengers.

Child restraint systems (CRSs) reduce risk of crash-related injury by 50%-85%, however use errors undermine their benefits. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) created the Ease of Use (EOU) rating system to help guide consumers and incentivize manufacturers to improve their products. The EOU rating system assigns one to five stars to four CRS features and overall.

Child passenger safety technicians working in the community and with car seat manufacturers are available to answer questions about installing and using car seats. The NHTSA website provides a resource directory by zip code to help parents connect with a local certified child passenger safety technician who can check if the seat is installed correctly or provide help on installing and using an appropriate car seat.

“New parents often receive training on car seat installation before the baby is born. However, it would be beneficial for them to take advantage of the available resources after the child’s birth as well, especially during the transition from infant carrier to rear-facing car seat, and then again when switching to the seat to face forward,” said lead author Michelle Macy, MD, MS, Emergency Medicine physician at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Research Brief: Novel Neurodevelopmental Monitoring System Shows Promise in Screening for Neurologic Diseases and in Tracking Neurodevelopment 

Neurodevelopment from birth to 10 years is an important time for cognitive and functional development. Instruments that track brain development are available, but they have limitations, such as cost and lack of portability, that make it challenging to monitor children outside of the clinical environment or in medically underserved areas. A multi-center validation study led by researchers at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago demonstrated the potential of an experimental multimodal wireless system to perform clinical-grade neurodevelopmental monitoring to screen for neurologic diseases in children at a medical clinic or at home. The findings are published in PLOS Digital Health.  

 Key Takeaways 

• The team present an innovative comprehensive wireless neurodevelopment monitoring system that adds neuronal activity measurement via EEG to previously validated chest and limb modules. Pilot studies at an academic quaternary pediatric care center demonstrate the practicality and feasibility of ANNE EEG to conduct electroencephalography studies with high levels of accuracy, validated via both quantitative and qualitative metrics, compared to the gold standard system. Furthermore, the researchers also demonstrate the feasibility and scalability of the system for use in neonates in the low and middle income country setting. 
• Beyond neurodevelopment, the system allows for true clinical-grade electroencephalography whose measurement parameters meet or exceed current standards, replacing standard abdominal and respiratory belts, SpO2 sensor, and ECG, but also adding other measurements such as SCG, temperature, and accelerometry that may serve as additional variables in evaluating seizures or other conditions such as sleep apnea in high-risk children, autism, or movement disorders. 
• As part of the study, parents were surveyed about their experience with the system. An overwhelming majority of parents indicated an overall preference for the wireless system and agreed that its use would improve their children’s physical and emotional health. 

The researchers note some limitations of the validation study that require further investigation prior to widespread deployment of the monitoring system. They plan to expand the number of feasibility studies performed at both high-income country and low-middle income country settings. They also intend to perform further quantitative analysis with an enlarged sample size to better validate neurodevelopmental power spectra trends.  

Jeremy Wong, MD, Attending Physician, Neurology, at Lurie Children’s and the study’s lead author, noted opportunities for future research investigations. These include validating measurements of the multimodal monitoring system in a time-synchronized manner and adding additional measurement features, such as an expanded number of electrodes and an easier-to-use wearable electrode solution. Pediatric research at Lurie Children’s is conducted through Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute. 

Article Citation 

Wong JN, Walter JR, Conrad EC, Seshadri DR, Lee JY, Gonzalez H, et al. A Comprehensive Wireless Neurological and Cardiopulmonary Monitoring Platform for Pediatrics. PLOS Digital Health. 2023. 2(7): e0000291. doi: 10.1371/journal.pdig.0000291 

Early Peanut Introduction Gaining Traction Among U.S. Parents, but More Work Needed

In 2017, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a dramatic reversal in its approach to peanut-allergy prevention, recommending parents expose their infants as young as four months old to peanuts to prevent peanut allergy. 

In the five years since, early introduction to peanuts has been gaining traction among U.S. parents and caregivers, but more work must be done to communicate the guidelines more broadly, especially to those with less access to health-related information, reports a new study from Northwestern University and the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Among all surveyed parents and caregivers in the U.S., 13% of parents said they’re aware of the guidelines and 48% believed feeding peanuts early prevented peanut allergy, despite knowing about the guidelines or not.

“There was general awareness of ‘If I give these foods early, it will help,’ even if families didn’t know it came from the NIH guidelines,” said Dr. Waheeda Samady, associate professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and director of clinical research at Northwestern’s Center for Food Allergy and Asthma Research. “There’s still a lot of room for growth in terms of educating families and clinicians about these guidelines.”

The study found that having a pediatrician who recommended early peanut introduction was the strongest factor in whether a parent or caregiver was aware of the guidelines.

Prenatal Diagnosis Matters: Linked to Earlier Surgery for Congenital Heart Disease

Earlier surgery is often better for baby’s neurodevelopmental and physical outcomes

A study from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago has shown that prenatal diagnosis, or diagnosis before a baby is born, is associated with earlier surgery for babies with congenital heart defects, the most common birth defects affecting nearly 1% of all live births. The association was demonstrated for critical defects (when heart surgery is required before the infant leaves the hospital) and certain types of noncritical defects, which constitute about 75% of all congenital heart defects

The benefits of prenatal diagnosis of congenital heart defects for babies has been debated. With the knowledge that earlier heart surgery is often better for a child’s development, investigators at Lurie Children’s have found that prenatally diagnosed babies born with critical heart disease had surgery on average one week sooner than those with postnatal diagnosis. Surgery for babies with prenatally diagnosed noncritical cardiac defects occurred anywhere from two to 12 months sooner. Results were published in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

“Our study quantifies the tremendous importance of prenatal diagnosis for infants with congenital heart disease,” said lead author Joyce Woo, MD, MS, cardiologist at Lurie Children’s and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “For infants with critical disease especially, getting surgery a week earlier can make a big difference in the development of the brain and other organs. Earlier surgery for certain types of noncritical congenital heart disease can also prevent poor outcomes, such as heart failure. Our findings emphasize that prenatal diagnosis is crucial to optimize surgical timing and the long-term health of the baby. Prenatal diagnosis needs to be equitably accessible to all pregnant people.”

RSV Surges and RSV Hospitalization Spikes in High-Risk Kids

Pediatric hospitalizations for RSV in 2021-2022 equaled to nearly half of all such hospitalizations in the past five years

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) surges in young children occurred outside the usual November to March season, when immune-based prophylactic is available to protect children at high risk for severe illness. In 2021, RSV season began in May, leaving these kids without a prophylactic until September, due to lack of drug availability and challenges with insurance authorization for off-season administration. During this time, pediatric hospitalizations for RSV in 2021-2022 spiked and remained higher than normal throughout 2022, making up 45% of all pediatric RSV hospitalizations in the past five years, according to a report from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago published in JAMA Health Forum.

Congenital heart disease, prematurity, and chronic lung disease of prematurity place children at high risk for RSV severity and at risk for hospitalization. Typically, these children are given an RSV prophylactic once a month from November to March – the usual RSV season.

“Our findings underscore the need for a more fluid policy on RSV prophylactic availability so that we can start protecting children at high risk as soon as we see cases rising in the community,” said Jennifer Kusma, MD, MS, a pediatrician at Lurie Children’s and Instructor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “Given the recent RSV peaks at unusual times of the year, these kids need access to the prophylactic when the virus actually hits, as opposed to only in November through March.”

PCORI Awards $6 Million to Study Strategies to Support Parents After a Child’s Unexpected or Traumatic Death

A research team led by Kelly Michelson, MD, MPH, FCCM, FAAP, HEC-C, and Stacy Tessler Lindau, MD, MA, has been approved for a $6,155,096 million research funding award by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to study, “The Missing Pieces Trial: A Multi-Site Pragmatic Comparative Effectiveness Trial of Interventions to Support Parents After Their Child's Unexpected or Traumatic Death.” Michelson, a Critical Care physician at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago; Professor of Pediatrics and Julia and David Uihlein Professor of Bioethics and Medical Humanities, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine; and Director, Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine; and Lindau, the Catherine Lindsay Dobson Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago, will work in collaboration with Kristin James, co-founder of Missing Pieces, a program of The HAP Foundation, that partners with Chicagoland organizations to support people after a child dies.

"The death of a child is a family's worst nightmare. When a child dies unexpectedly or traumatically parents rarely have help finding support for themselves or the rest of their family. This work will help these families by studying two different strategies for getting parents whose child has died traumatically or unexpectedly to the community resources they so desperately need,” said Dr. Michelson. “This is a collaborative effort involving Lurie Children's, Missing Pieces (a program of The HAP Foundation) co-founded with Kristin James, Dr. Stacy Lindau's team of researchers at the University of Chicago, and numerous stakeholders, including bereaved parents, coroners, medical examiners, and community organizations across the Chicagoland area. While our main goal is to help families, we will also study the impact of our work on medical examiners and coroners and on community organizations that provide crucially needed support for families during these tragic situations."

MANNE RESEARCH INSTITUTE IN THE MEDIA

• Stem Cells Could Change How Crohn’s Is Treated, Lurie Study Finds: ‘The Potential Is Enormous - WBBM News Radio
• A Wake-up Call For Kids’ Poor Heart Health - Northwestern Now
• Eczema to Hay Fever: The ‘Allergic March’ Shows How Allergies Can Progress in Kids - NBC News
• Parents Can Reduce a Child’s Peanut Allergy Risk With These Steps. Most Don’t Know Them. - USA Today
• Q&A: Overcoming Delays in Cystic Fibrosis Diagnosis, Treatment - Healio
• Study Provides Clearer View of Newborns With Opioid Withdrawal - MedicalXpress
• Prenatal Diagnosis Matters: Linked to Earlier Surgery for Congenital Heart Disease - EurekAlert