|
Science Showcase
- Department of Pediatrics Celebrates Faculty Academic Promotions
News from the Manne Research Institute Pillars
- Nearly 70% of U.S. Children in Car Crashes with a Fatality Were Not Using Proper Child Passenger Restraints, Study Finds
- Research Aims to Prevent Lung Damage in Babies and Toddlers with Severe Flu, RSV
- Predicting Risk in Children with Heart Defects
- Lurie Children’s Awarded $10 Million by PCORI to Study Ways to Improve Bowel Continence in Patients with Spina Bifida
- Bullied Teens Less Likely to Be Depressed if They Feel Connected at School, Study Shows
- Community-based Approach Boosts Family Engagement in ADHD Care
- Clinical Trials Use Precision Medicine to Test Treatments for Severe Asthma
- Study Reveals Hidden Drivers of Asthma Flare-Ups in Children
- Research Brings Hope for New Treatments for Spinal Muscular Atrophy, Autism
Manne Research Institute in the Media
Have research news to share? Submit it here.
| | | Department of Pediatrics Celebrates Faculty Academic Promotions | | Congratulations to the following faculty members in the Department of Pediatrics at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine who were recognized by Northwestern University with academic promotions effective September 1. | | |
Promotion from Instructor to Assistant Professor
- Lucas Bruton, MD, Advanced General Pediatrics and Primary Care
- Alexandra Feldman, MD, Critical Care
- Josephine Snider, MD, Hospital-Based Medicine
Promotion from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor
- Matthew Barhight, MD, Critical Care
- Catherine Chapin, MD, MS, Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition
- Gustave Falciglia, MD, MS, Neonatology
- Brandi Kenner-Bell, MD, Dermatology
- Mahima Keswani, MD, Nephrology
- Katherine Kim, MS, Genetics, Genomics, and Metabolism
- Avani Shah, MD, Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine
- Sigrid Wolf, MD, Advanced General Pediatrics and Primary Care
| |  | |
Promotion from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor (Tenured)
- Monica Laronda, PhD, Endocrinology
- Amanda Marma Perak, MD, MS, Cardiology
Promotion from Associate Professor to Professor
- Karim Diab, MD, Cardiology
- Todd Florin, MD, MSCE, Emergency Medicine
- Russell Horowitz, MD, Emergency Medicine
- Sameer Patel, MD, MPH, Infectious Diseases
Promotion from Associate Professor to Professor (Tenured)
- Yongchao Ma, PhD, Pediatrics
| | | | NEWS FROM THE RESEARCH PILLARS | | |
Improper child passenger restraints included premature transition to a less protective seat, riding in the front seat and riding without a seatbelt
Despite national guidelines, state laws and known safety benefits of child passenger restraint systems (CRS), suboptimal practices were found in nearly 70% of children under 13 years old who were involved in car crashes with a fatality from 2011 to 2021, according to a study published in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention.
“Given the continued problem of suboptimal child passenger safety practices among children across the country, there is a need for innovative, targeted programs to promote correct and consistent use of age-appropriate car seats, restraints and seating locations,” said lead author Arthi Kozhumam, MScGH, a PhD candidate in the Medical Scientist Training Program in the Macy Lab at Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.
An average of three child fatalities and an estimated 429 child injuries occur each day as the result of motor vehicle crashes in the United States.
| | |
Children under 2 years of age are at highest risk for getting critically ill from the flu or RSV and requiring intensive care. Currently, doctors can only provide breathing support for severe flu or RSV infection, since no medications exist to speed up recovery or prevent excessive damage to the lungs. With her lab research funded by the National Institutes of Health, Bria Coates, MD, from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, is determined to discover how to interrupt the process of injury to the lungs and promote cell repair, so patients can avoid long term consequences from lung damage.
“We want to understand why some babies and toddlers get so much sicker from viral infections,” said Dr. Coates, critical care medicine physician at Lurie Children’s and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “One possible cause might be an overactive immune response.”
| | Check out a recent In Pursuit podcast from Manne Research Institute, featuring Dr. Bria Coates as she and host Dr. Patrick Seed discuss the challenges and unpredictability of viral respiratory illnesses in young patients, the impact of these infections on long-term lung health and how her research aims to reshape the field. | | | |
A multi-center study has identified critical risk factors that increase the likelihood of death in children with a heart defect who are awaiting or have recently undergone heart transplantation, according to findings published in Circulation.
Fontan circulatory failure (FCF) is a long-term complication in children born with single-ventricle heart defects who have undergone a series of surgeries that culminates with the Fontan procedure. While this surgery helps reroute blood flow and extend life expectancy, it can lead to chronic health problems, including heart failure and damage to other organs. Many of these patients eventually require a heart transplant.
The new study, conducted across 20 U.S. medical centers, offers new insights into how specific health complications affect survival in children with the condition, said co-author Anna Joong, MD, cardiologist at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
“We have a strong interest in understanding patients with Fontan circulatory failure: how we can better manage their heart failure, when the ideal time is to list them for a heart transplant, and what the risk factors are while waiting for a transplant,” Dr. Joong said.
| | |
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago has been approved for $10 million in research funding by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) for a study that will examine ways to improve bowel continence in people with spina bifida.
Spina bifida, a condition affecting about 166,000 people in the U.S., is a birth defect that affects the spinal cord and several organ systems throughout the body, such as the bowels and intestines. Consequently, bowel incontinence, or accidents, occurs frequently. Because bowel incontinence can be highly disruptive to patients’ lives, it has been recognized as a top priority for research in the spina bifida community.
Treatment for bowel incontinence typically follows a step-by-step approach. If oral medications like laxatives don’t work, doctors recommend enemas to help empty the bowels. There are two main types: retrograde enemas, or those given in a backward direction through the anus; and antegrade enemas, or those delivered in a forward direction through a tube placed at the start of the large intestine. These two main types of enema programs are commonly used but have different advantages and disadvantages and have not previously been compared or studied thoroughly.
The PCORI-funded study, led by David Chu, MD, MSCE, Attending Physician in Urology at Lurie Children’s and Associate Professor of Urology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, will compare how retrograde versus antegrade enema programs impact patient-reported outcomes of continence, quality of life, symptoms, self-management and independence for people with spina bifida enduring bowel incontinence.
| | |
School connectedness buffers against depression symptoms associated with being a victim of peer bullying in adolescence, according to a study published in BMC Public Health. School connectedness was measured by the degrees of inclusiveness, closeness, happiness and safety of adolescents within the school environment.
“We found that peer bullying during adolescence was associated with higher anxiety and depression symptoms than peer bullying experiences during childhood,” said co-author Nia Heard-Garris, MD, MBA, MSc, pediatrician and researcher at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “This finding might be due in part to the heightened social sensitivity of adolescents to their peers and the significant influence of peer relationships amongst teenagers than children. Likewise, we saw that school connectedness was more protective against depression in teens than in younger children.”
| | |
Innovative intervention delivered by trained community health workers – meaning nonclinical personnel with deep knowledge of the community – increased treatment utilization among participating families with children who have ADHD, according to a pilot study published in the Journal of Attention Disorders. This intervention for parents and caregivers, covering topics that range from education about ADHD to discussions of stigma and barriers to care, intends to reduce inequities in access to evidence-based treatment and boost family engagement in ADHD care.
“We know from previous studies that compared to White youth, Black, Hispanic, and Asian children with ADHD receive less treatment, including fewer visits with a healthcare provider and lower medication use,” said lead author Andrea Spencer, MD, Vice Chair for Research, Pritzker Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
“We are excited to make a tangible difference for children and their families by using a community-based approach to ADHD that has proved to be so successful for other pediatric conditions, like asthma,” she said. “When so many children have an illness and access to care is inadequate, we need to think beyond individual patient interactions and develop public health solutions. This is the first study to use an intervention for ADHD delivered by community health workers.”
| | Study Reveals Hidden Drivers of Asthma Flare-Ups in Children | |
A multicenter clinical trial has uncovered inflammatory pathways that contribute to asthma flare-ups in children that occur despite treatment, according to findings published in JAMA Pediatrics.
Eosinophilic asthma is characterized by high levels of eosinophils, a type of white blood cell involved in the body’s immune response. While eosinophils typically help fight infections, in eosinophilic asthma, they accumulate in the lungs and airways, causing chronic inflammation, swelling and damage to the respiratory system.
Eosinophilic asthma is driven by type 2 (T2) inflammation, an immune response involving cytokines that promote the production and activation of eosinophils. Because of this, therapies targeting T2 inflammation are used to reduce eosinophil levels and prevent asthma flare-ups.
| | |
Asthma severity can be affected by multiple inflammatory pathways, which make it challenging to treat with a “one size fits all” approach. This is why researchers started pursuing precision medicine for asthma – distinguishing disease types based on specific biological signs (called biomarkers) and matching treatments to the patient’s asthma type.
“With a trial that uses precision medicine as a way to direct subjects to the potentially most optimal treatment for their type of profile, we are attempting to apply to asthma an approach that proved successful with cancer studies. This is called a platform trial where multiple interventions are examined in subjects who participate in the trial. This is particularly important since asthma that is severe and associated with risk of exacerbations is variable in the types of inflammation present and needs additional precise options for treatment,” said Rajesh Kumar, MD, Interim Division Head of Allergy and Immunology at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “This is an exciting first for asthma research.”
Dr. Kumar is the Lurie Children’s site Principal Investigator for the Precision Interventions for Severe and/or Exacerbation-Prone Asthma (PrecISE) Network, a groundbreaking collaborative of asthma researchers from across the United States. He also is on the Steering Committee, the Publications Committee and the New Approaches Committee of the PrecISE Network.
| | | |
Ancient bacteria that have evolved to become integral to our cells – converting nutrients from food into energy – may also contribute to neurologic disorders, such as spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and autism, according to research in the lab of Yongchao Ma, PhD, from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.
Called mitochondria, these mysterious parts of the cell even have retained their own DNA. Traditionally they are known as the “powerhouse of the cell.” In recent years, however, mitochondria have been recognized as regulating many functions, including gene expression and how cells communicate. Dr. Ma’s research focuses on how dysregulation by mitochondria may lead to motor neuron degeneration in SMA or improper neuron connections in autism.
“Our lab has been investigating the mechanisms by which mitochondria influences development of neurologic diseases in order to discover new targets for treatment,” said Dr. Ma, a neurobiologist at Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute at Lurie Children’s and Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Neurology and Neuroscience at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
| | MANNE RESEARCH INSTITUTE IN THE MEDIA | | | | |
