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Our Latest President's Message
- Celebrating the Vision and Impact of Our Manne Research Institute Board
In Pursuit Podcast
- Exploring Disparities in Neonatal Health with Dr. James W. Collins, Jr.
News from the Manne Research Institute Pillars
- Pediatric Emergency Department Care Varied Across Hospitals During 2022 Surge in Viral Respiratory Illnesses
- Very Early Treatment of Newborns with HIV Could Result in Medication-Free Remission for Many Babies
- New Target Found for Treatment of Spinal Muscular Atrophy
- New Study May Improve Heart Health in Children with Kidney Disease
- Multi-Site Study Reveals Addressable Socioeconomic Barriers to Prenatal Diagnosis of Congenital Heart Defects
Manne Research Institute in the Media
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Celebrating the Vision and Impact of Our Manne Research Institute Board
Manne Research Institute's latest President's Message from Dr. Patrick Seed
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In his December message, President and Chief Research Officer Patrick Seed, MD, PhD, FIDSA, celebrates the vision and impact of the Manne Research Institute Board of Directors. Through the perspectives of Elizabeth Q. Betten and Pran Jha, Dr. Seed shares how the Board's strategic guidance, support, and personal connections to the research institute and to Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago pave the way for cutting-edge solutions to pediatric health challenges. | |
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In Pursuit Podcast: Exploring Disparities in Neonatal Health
Check out the recent episode of In Pursuit, featuring Dr. James W. Collins, Jr.
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James W. Collins, Jr., MD, MPH, joins In Pursuit to discuss how his exploration of disparities in neonatal health outcomes has expanded over the course of his career to include race, education, socioeconomics, paternal acknowledgement, and other social influencers of health. In Pursuit is presented by Stanley Manne Children's Research Institute at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, and is hosted by Patrick Seed, MD, PhD, FIDSA.
Guest: James W. Collins, Jr., MD, MPH, Medical Director, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago; Attending Physician, Neonatology; Zeisler Family Neonatology Leadership Chair; Professor of Pediatrics (Neonatology), Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Host: Patrick C. Seed, MD, PhD, FIDSA, Attending Physician, Infectious Disease, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago; President and Chief Research Officer, Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute; Children’s Research Fund Chair in Basic Science; Professor of Pediatrics (Infectious Disease) and Microbiology-Immunology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
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NEWS FROM THE RESEARCH PILLARS | |
Pediatric Emergency Department Care Varied Across Hospitals During 2022 Surge in Viral Respiratory Illnesses | |
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New research published in JAMA Network Open investigated how surges in three respiratory illnesses—respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza, and COVID-19—affected care for children who presented at emergency departments throughout Michigan.
In the cohort study, the researchers examined more than 2.7 million visits to 25 emergency departments within the Michigan Emergency Department Improvement Collaborative (MEDIC) that took place in 2021 and 2022. These include children’s hospitals, community hospitals, and rural emergency departments. The researchers focused on a four-month period (September–December 2022) when the country experienced a surge in cases of RSV, influenza, and COVID-19 and in emergency department patient volumes. Among the findings of the study are that prolonged wait times and lengths of stay were more common at specialized children’s hospitals than at other sites and that higher visit volumes were associated with increased likelihood of revisits to emergency departments across hospitals. They concluded that advanced preparation and collaboration across all emergency departments may improve and enhance care for children during surges in illnesses.
Michelle Macy, MD, MS, Attending Physician of Emergency Medicine at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and a member of MEDIC, is a co-author of the study. Dr. Macy collaborated with researchers at the University of Michigan.
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An unexpectedly high percentage of children, who were born with HIV and started treatment within 48 hours of life, exhibit biomarkers by 2 years of age that may make them eligible to test for medication-free remission, according to a multinational study published in Lancet HIV.
“Moving away from reliance on daily antiretroviral therapy (ART) to control HIV would be a huge improvement to the quality of life of these children,” said Protocol Co-Chair and senior author Ellen Chadwick, MD, former Director of Section of Pediatric, Adolescent and Maternal HIV Infection at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
The proof-of-concept study was charged with replicating the case of HIV remission as seen in the “Mississippi baby” that was reported in 2013. In that case, the infant started ART at 30 hours of life, was treated for 18 months, and achieved 27 months of ART-free remission before the virus rebounded. Typically, if ART is stopped, the virus rebounds within a month.
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The lab of Yongchao C. Ma, PhD, at Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago uncovered a novel mechanism that leads to motor neuron degeneration in spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). This discovery offers a new target for treatment that overcomes important limitations of gene therapy and other current therapies for SMA.
SMA is a genetic disease that disrupts the nerve cells that control voluntary muscle movement. Symptoms of motor neuron degeneration could start at as early as 3 months of age and lead to muscle atrophy, paralysis and death, often before the child’s second birthday. Gene therapy has revolutionized SMA treatment, but it only works for a subgroup of patients and it can be too toxic.
Dr. Ma and team found that in SMA, increased activity of a type of enzyme called cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (Cdk5) causes defective function of mitochondria, which is a powerhouse of the cell and serves as a signaling center for many cell processes. In SMA, the mitochondrial dysfunction contributes to cell death or degeneration of motor neurons, and this occurs before symptoms develop.
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New Study May Improve Heart Health in Children with Kidney Disease | |
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Young adults with chronic kidney disease experience heart failure at a rate several hundred times higher than their healthy peers. A new study will employ advanced diagnostics and therapeutics to improve heart health. This new clinical research study, led by Alexander J. Kula, MD, will begin enrolling youth ages 12-25 in 2024. The study will be supported by a K23 grant from the NIH/NIDDK.
Working together with Pei-Ni Jone, MD, Director of the Echocardiography Laboratory and Jarett Linder, MD, at Lurie Children’s Heart Center, the goal is to identify the earliest signs of compromised cardiac health in children and adolescents with chronic kidney disease. Lurie Children’s is one of the few pediatric centers with the infrastructure and expertise to perform the exercise stress-echocardiography utilized by Dr. Kula’s study. Through advanced clinical testing, the hope is to identify changes in heart function that occur at the earliest, and most-reversible stage of disease. Concurrently, Dr. Kula will be leading a small clinical trial of a medication that has shown great promise preventing, and even reversing, cardiac damage in adult patients with kidney disease.
“Cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of death in persons with kidney disease of all ages and my mission is to help young people with kidney disease live long and meaningful lives by primarily focusing on their heart health,” said Dr. Kula. The collaboration between these two research-driven teams coming together in an environment that supports innovative approaches to develop cutting-edge diagnostics and therapeutics is truly the foundation for this grant, added Dr. Kula.
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Prenatal diagnosis of congenital heart defects – the most common birth defects in the United States – is associated with improved outcomes. Despite its importance, however, overall prevalence of prenatal diagnosis is low (12-50 percent). A recent multi-center study surveyed caretakers of infants who received congenital heart surgery in the Chicago area and found that social determinants or influencers of health constitute significant barriers to prenatal diagnosis from the patients’ perspective.
In the study, nearly 80 percent reported at least one socioeconomic barrier to prenatal diagnosis. The most common socioeconomic barriers were difficulty with appointment scheduling, distance to care or lack of transportation access, challenges with getting time off work to attend appointments, and lack of childcare. Findings were published in the journal Prenatal Diagnosis.
“Undetected congenital heart defects on ultrasound, and technical ways to improve detection, are robust areas of research in the field of fetal cardiology. But we found that socioeconomic factors that interfere with prenatal diagnosis were even more commonly reported by patients than undetected defects on ultrasound,” said lead author Joyce Woo, MD, MS, cardiologist at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “The strength of our study comes from talking to patients, which allowed us to dive deeper into the details and uncover socioeconomic barriers that can be directly addressed so that we can potentially improve the rate of prenatal diagnosis and simultaneously lessen disparities in prenatal diagnosis.”
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MANNE RESEARCH INSTITUTE IN THE MEDIA | |
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