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Science Showcase
- Kyle MacQuarrie Advances Cancer Research with Joseph and Dorothy Giddan Child Health Research Award
- Manne Research Institute’s Health@Home Initiative Partners on Digital Health Project
News from the Manne Research Institute Pillars
- First Guideline on Newborn Screening for Cystic Fibrosis Calls for Changes in Practice to Improve Outcomes
- Experts Stress Importance of Vaccination Amidst Measles Outbreaks
- Chicago Adults Name Gun Violence, Poverty, Lack of Supervision and Social Media as Top Child Health Concerns
- Compelling Data Point to a Single, Unknown Respiratory Virus as Cause of Kawasaki Disease
- Anxiety and Depression in Youth Increasing Prior, During and After Pandemic
Manne Research Institute in the Media
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| | | Kyle MacQuarrie Advances Cancer Research with Joseph and Dorothy Giddan Child Health Research Award | |
Kyle MacQuarrie, MD, PhD, Attending Physician at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, received the 2025 Joseph and Dorothy Giddan Child Health Research Award to support his research on rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare and aggressive pediatric cancer of the muscle.
Dr. MacQuarrie’s research project, Targeting Chromosomal Organization and Differentiation in Rhabdomyosarcoma Cells, aims to advance the understanding of how to differentiate rhabdomyosarcoma cells to stop their growth by targeting the organization of chromosomes. The hope is that differentiation therapy may lead to ways to reduce some of the side effects patients experience from common cancer treatments and increase survival rates. Additionally, the project’s focus on differentiation has the potential to uncover not only biology relevant to treating rhabdomyosarcoma but also previously unknown biology relevant to the development of normal skeletal muscle, says Dr. MacQuarrie.
Dr. MacQuarrie is the principal investigator of the MacQuarrie Laboratory at Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute and is an assistant professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Pediatric research at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago is conducted through Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute.
Administered by Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences (NUCATS) Institute, the Joseph and Dorothy Giddan Child Health Research Award supports highly innovative, lab-based basic or translational research projects that expand the knowledge base in the field of child health.
Pediatric research at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago is conducted through Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute.
View this article on the Manne Research Institute website.
| | Manne Research Institute’s Health@Home Initiative Partners on Digital Health Project | | |
Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute’s Health@Home initiative recently joined the Digital Medicine Society’s Digital Health Measurement Collaborative Community, a project bringing together experts in digital health and members of the U.S. Department of Food and Agriculture’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health to advance the use of digital health measures in research.
The team will develop a set of core digital measures to advance the use of high-value, meaningful digital measures and digital endpoints in clinical research and care. Currently, there is no current agreed-upon measure set that considers not just patient symptoms but other outcomes like family well-being and child function related to digital medicine, said Carolyn Foster, MD, MS, Director of Health@Home, Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute, and Attending Physician of Advanced General Pediatrics and Primary Care, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.
| | | | NEWS FROM THE RESEARCH PILLARS | | |
The United States Cystic Fibrosis Foundation released the first guideline on newborn screening for cystic fibrosis (CF), in order to improve timely detection of CF in infants from all racial and ethnic backgrounds. The new guideline, based on systematic literature reviews and published in the International Journal of Neonatal Screening, reflects rigorous scientific investigation and perspectives from parents, CF specialists, public health representatives, primary care providers and genetic counselors.
CF is a genetic disorder that causes problems with digestion and breathing. Currently, newborns in every state are screened for CF. However, great variation in practice and the genetic panels used contributes to missed and delayed diagnosis, which leads to worse outcomes.
“Delays more often occur in diagnosis of infants who are Black, Hispanic, or Asian, in part because these groups tend to have CF-causing gene variants that are rarer and seldom included in the newborn screening panels. These infants frequently screen negative and get diagnosed much later when they exhibit symptoms. The delay in care causes more severe illness trajectory,” explained co-senior author Susanna McColley, MD, an internationally recognized expert in CF newborn screening, pediatric pulmonologist at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
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Pediatric infectious diseases experts stress the importance of vaccination against measles, one of the most contagious viruses, which is once more spreading in the United States. In the article published in Pediatrics, they update pediatricians on this vaccine-preventable disease, which was previously declared non-endemic in the U.S.
“The most effective way to prevent measles is vaccination,” said lead author Caitlin Naureckas Li, MD, MHQS, infectious diseases specialist at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “If parents are concerned that their child was exposed to measles or may have measles, they should call their child’s doctor. They should not attempt to treat measles on their own without a physician’s advice.”
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The latest report from Voices of Child Health in Chicago at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago reveals the top health concerns among Chicago adults. Based on survey responses from over 5,400 participants, gun-related violence in neighborhoods remains the top concern. Poverty and lack of adult supervision follow as leading concerns affecting children’s well-being.
The report, which gathered perspectives from a diverse group of adults across the city, shows that 79% ranked gun-related violence as a top concern, underscoring the deep impact of community safety on child development. Nationally, gun-related death rates have nearly doubled since 2011, and in 2023, about 20% of Chicago’s shooting victims were juveniles.
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Research from Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago strongly suggests that Kawasaki disease is caused by a single respiratory virus that is yet to be identified. Findings contradict the theory that many different pathogens or toxins could cause this disease that can lead to serious cardiac complications in young children.
“The cause of Kawasaki disease has been a mystery for over 50 years,” said Anne Rowley, MD, pediatric infectious diseases expert and scientist at Manne Research Institute at Lurie Children’s, who is the lead author on the study published in Laboratory Investigation. “Our compelling data are a huge step forward and provide a clear direction for the field to identify and sequence the virus that causes Kawasaki disease in susceptible children. This will be critical to advancing the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of Kawasaki disease.”
Kawasaki disease is relatively uncommon, affecting mostly children between 6 months and 5 years of age. Lurie Children’s sees 50-60 newly diagnosed Kawasaki disease patients a year.
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The percentage of children under 18 years old with anxiety and depression increased steadily from 2016 to 2022, according to publicly available data from the National Survey of Children’s Health that were analyzed by researchers from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. In contrast, there was no increase during that timeframe related to physical health problems, such as asthma, severe headache or migraine, and heart conditions. Results were published in JAMA Pediatrics.
“Our findings underscore the critical need to prioritize youth mental health, which continued to worsen even as we emerged from the pandemic,” said lead author Marie Heffernan, PhD, Scientific Director for Quantitative Science at Smith Child Health Outcomes, Research, and Evaluation Center Catalyst Program at Lurie Children’s and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
| | MANNE RESEARCH INSTITUTE IN THE MEDIA | | | | |
