Have an update to share? Research news, milestones, funding announcements, and events can be submitted via the Research Communications request form. In addition to the monthly newsletter, Manne Research Institute distributes a bi-weekly "Events and Opportunities" email featuring upcoming events, including virtual and in-person educational opportunities, and relevant research deadlines. All previous updates can be found in the Research Communications archive.

Research Education, in collaboration with Data Analytics and Reporting (DAR), announces an instructional video on utilizing the new custom data model in Epic, BioRepository Samples.

BioRepository Samples allows researchers to query select information about specimens stored in the Lurie Children’s biorepository using SlicerDicer. This means users can explore the biorepository inventory in an identified way (with appropriate security) or deidentified way (general access) to find information such as types of available samples, sample amount, and the PI associated with the sample. In addition, users can create patient cohorts using the Patients data model and then link to the BioRepository Samples data model to find if samples exist for patients in the cohort.

The resource video can be accessed via workday. Please register here. Please also reference the DAR Epic SlicerDicer Training Guide 2022 when accessing the BioRepository Samples data model.

DAR hosts office hours specifically for SlicerDicer should you need help or have questions about BioRepository Samples or other data models.  

As a follow up to the communication on November 22, faculty and staff are reminded that the conference room scheduling process for floors 3, 4, and 10 in the Simpson Querrey Biomedical Research Center (SQBRC) has changed. All previously utilized “SMCRI” calendars have been removed and will no longer be available. This means all room reservations, even previously scheduled reservations, will need to be created or transferred by following the steps outlined here. This new scheduling process will increase transparency, improve accuracy regarding conference room availability, simplify the booking process, and allow team members to easily reserve a conference room without the aid of an administrator.

For information on reserving conference rooms outside of SQBRC floors 3, 4, and 10, refer to the following information.

Please email [email protected] with any questions or concerns.

Conor Broeking recently joined the research team of Dr. Kathleen Boyne as a Research Technologist II. Previously, Broeking worked as a Pyxis Engineer at Becton, Dickinson and Company, a medical device firm, and conducted research on soft robotics and minimally invasive surgical tools at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He continues to explore machine learning and computer science advancements. He earned a BS in Bioengineering with a concentration in Therapeutics from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Dr. Anne Rowley and her research team welcome Kassandra Mercado, MS, as a Research Technologist II. Mercado has more than nine years of experience in research, including a focus on animal research and assisting with experiments on innate immunity proteins, the regulation of the microbiome, and inflammatory diseases while working at Indiana University. She has also assisted with multiple experiments on osteoarthritis and pain behaviors in the rheumatology department at Rush University. Kassandra earned an MS in Psychology from Purdue University and a BS in Psychology from Indiana University. Her plans are to apply for her PhD and continue expanding her research experience.

Lauren Spirov, MS, is a health and wellness professional with a passion for the implementation of global health education and translating research into action. She supports clinical and behavior research education at Lurie Children's and is passionate about creating and disseminating digestible, accessible, and inclusive health education. She earned an MS in Kinesiology.

The National Institutes of Health Common Fund recently awarded the Human Biomolecular Atlas Project (HuBMAP) Demonstration Award to Monica Laronda (right), PhD, Director of Research for the Fertility & Hormone Preservation & Restoration Program at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. The grant, which was one of four awarded to various investigators, will fund the study, “Reverse Engineering the Extracellular Neighborhood to Support the Functional Tissue Unit: A Use Case to Restore Ovarian Function.”

The HuBMAP consortium is a collaborative effort to map the organs of the human body at high resolution to understand the molecular mechanisms and cellular integrations of healthy organs. The Laronda Laboratory and collaborators will contribute to the developmental, spatial, and temporal dimensions of the healthy human ovary map. In keeping in line with the Fertility & Hormone Preservation & Restoration Research goals, this award supports research to inform regenerative medicine technologies that improve the safety, efficacy, and longevity of fertility and hormone restoration options for patients with premature ovarian insufficiency, a disease that occurs in approximately 1% of women in the United States. Folliculogenesis, the process of creating an egg and producing ovarian hormones, is greatly influenced by extracellular factors that are different across human development and across compartments within the ovary.

“The milestones in our grant will add to the functionality of the HuBMAP ovary atlas by contributing information about the ovarian microenvironment and oocytes within pediatric and adolescent patient ovaries, which are going through the pubertal transition,” said Dr. Laronda, who is also the Gesualdo Family Research Scholar at Lurie Children’s and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “We will generate transcriptomic, proteomic, and other spatial and molecular datasets. We will then demonstrate the utility of this information by differentiating human induced pluripotent stem cells within engineered environments to construct regenerative technologies that may help individuals in need of hormone and fertility restoration.”

Dr. Laronda is the Principal Investigator of the study. The Co-Investigators are Ruli Gao (near right), PhD, Assistant Professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and Erin Rowell (far right), MD, Attending Physician of Pediatric Surgery and Medical Director of the Fertility & Hormone Preservation & Restoration Program at Lurie Children’s and Associate Professor of Surgery at Feinberg School. The award period is September 2022–August 2026.

JDRF recently awarded Jaclyn Papadakis, PhD, Pediatric Psychologist, Pritzker Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, a research grant to fund the study, “Evaluating the Initial Efficacy, Acceptability, and Feasibility of BFST-DT, an Intervention for Improving Transition Readiness for Adolescents and Emerging Adults with Type 1 Diabetes.”

The goal of the study is to improve transition readiness in late adolescents with type 1 diabetes and, subsequently, their diabetes self-management, the transfer to adult healthcare, and diabetes-related health outcomes during emerging adulthood. This will be done by delivering and assessing the preliminary evidence for Behavioral Family Systems Therapy for Diabetes Transition (BFST-DT), a family-based intervention developed for late adolescents with type 1 diabetes and their parents to help prepare for the transition to emerging adulthood by targeting individual and family transition readiness factors. The researchers will test the intervention via a pilot pre-post intervention design employing an iterative mixed-methods assessment of BFST-DT’s initial efficacy, acceptability, and feasibility both in the short-term and over two-years post-intervention.

Dr. Papadakis, who is also an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, is the Principal Investigator of the grant. She will collaborate with co-PI Jill Weissberg-Benchell, PhD, Pediatric Psychologist, Pritzker Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Lurie Children’s and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Feinberg School. The award period is April 2023–March 2027.

The Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society recently awarded Anne Rowley, MD, Attending Physician, Infectious Diseases, at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, the Caroline B. Hall Lectureship in Pediatric Infectious Diseases. The award recognizes Dr. Rowley’s outstanding contributions to pediatric infectious diseases using clinical and translational research approaches.

Dr. Rowley specializes in pediatric infectious diseases and is widely recognized for her expertise in caring for children with serious infections, and particularly children with Kawasaki disease. Her laboratory is committed to understanding the pathogenesis of Kawasaki disease and developing better diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of the illness. She is also a Professor of Pediatrics and Microbiology/Immunology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Research Brief: Study Assesses Role of Col2a1a in Neural Crest During Early Eye Development 

The COL2A1 gene plays a significant role in cartilage and bone formation, including type II collagen that provides structure to connective tissues in muscles, organs, joints, and skin. Mutations of the COL2A1 gene lead to abnormal type II collagen and cause Stickler syndrome, which can affect vision, hearing, and movement. There are cases of neonates with Stickler syndrome having myopia, increased globe size, and infantile-onset glaucoma, indicating to researchers that COL2A1 may have a greater role in eye development than previously thought. Looking into this further are researchers at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Hospital of Chicago who recently published their findings in Journal of Developmental Biology.  

“This study in zebrafish lays the groundwork for a project utilizing disease-specific human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines to further confirm the role of COL2A1 in human eye development and unravel the pathogenesis of Stickler syndrome,” said Antionette Williams, PhD, Senior Research Scientist, Division of Ophthalmology, at Lurie Children’s, and lead author of the study. “The goal is to combine animal and hESC studies to increase our understanding of human eye development and build on this information to create new therapies, medical procedures, or diagnostics that target or bypass the molecular defects that disrupt eye development and lead to blindness in people affected with congenital eye diseases.”

Brenda Bohnsack, MD, PhD, Division Head, Ophthalmology Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago Lillian Sherman Cowen Reiger and Harold L. S. Cowen Research Professor of Pediatric Ophthalmology Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, co-authored the study. Pediatric research at Lurie Children’s is conducted through Stanley Manne Children's Research Institute.

Williams AL, Bohnsack BL. Zebrafish Model of Stickler Syndrome Suggests a Role for Col2a1a in the Neural Crest during Early Eye Development. Journal of Developmental Biology. 2022; 10(4): 42. doi: 10.3390/jdb10040042

Dimension Inx, a regenerative biomaterials company, and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago have been jointly awarded an NIH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant. The grant focuses on uncovering a novel approach to in vitro growth and maturation (IVGM) of ovarian follicles. Together, Dimension Inx and Lurie Children’s will use the funding to further explore the development of a more accessible and affordable infertility preservation intervention, one particularly useful in the emerging field of oncofertility.

Infertility is a significant and growing global health problem, with estimates suggesting more than 186 million individuals live with infertility worldwide. While assistive reproductive technologies (ART) methods like IVF have been available for over four decades, these technologies remain largely inaccessible and unaffordable. They are also not a good fit for certain patients, such as women who have undergone cancer treatments or survived childhood cancer. These women are often at increased risk of infertility and hormone-based issues that affect many organs.

They are also not a good fit for certain patients, such as women who have undergone cancer treatments or survived childhood cancer. These women are often at increased risk of infertility and hormone-based issues that affect many organs.

The NIH award supports work that continues the successful collaboration between Ramille Shah, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Dimension Inx, and Monica Laronda, PhD, the Gesualdo Family Research Scholar at Lurie Children's, a nationally ranked children’s hospital and the home of Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute, one of the nation’s leading, free-standing pediatric research centers.

Readily available electronic health record (EHR) data can be used to reliably identify readmission risk for children of all ages while they are still in the hospital, according to a study from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago published in the journal JAMA Network Open. The newly developed and validated tool will be key in efforts to reduce hospitalizations within 30 days of discharge, which also should help free up scarce pediatric hospital beds.

“Although hospital readmissions are a quality metric, until now we have not had a comprehensive and easily applicable tool to predict pediatric readmission risk prior to discharge,” said lead author Denise M. Goodman, MD, MS, Critical Care physician at Lurie Children’s and Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “Knowing which children are most likely to need another hospitalization soon after their initial stay allows us to be proactive and better focus discharge planning to mitigate high risk of readmission.”

Dr. Goodman and colleagues used data from three years of discharges at Lurie Children’s to derive and validate a suite of three readmission prediction models for children of all ages, including infants younger than 28 days. To calculate readmission risk, these models apply demographic and socioeconomic data from the EHR, as well as clinical variables such as ongoing length of stay, use of specific therapies and prior hospitalizations.

“A significant strength of our prediction models is that they were designed to be implemented in the EHR during the hospital stay and to change with clinical circumstances,” said Dr. Goodman. “Readmission risk can be recalculated daily, which allows us the opportunity to tailor discharge planning in real time.”

Lowering the risk of readmissions also helps hospitals to make available pediatric beds, which are becoming increasingly scarce in Chicago, across Illinois and nationally. Read more...

Youth suicide rate increased as county levels of mental health professional shortages increased, after adjusting for county demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, according to the first national study to assess this association. The association remained significant for youth suicides by firearms. Findings were published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

“Our results underscore the critical need to expand the mental health professional workforce in counties across the country,” said lead author Jennifer Hoffmann, MD, MS, Emergency Medicine physician at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “In addition, policies that restrict firearm access to young people may be considered as a suicide prevention strategy.”

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among U.S. adolescents, with rates rising over the last decade. Disparities exist by area geography, with higher suicide rates in rural and high poverty areas of the U.S., where mental health professionals are scarce. Mental health problems are among the most common precipitating factors for youth suicide. Up to one in five children in the U.S. has a mental health condition, but only about half of children who need mental health care receive it.

Dr. Hoffmann and colleagues evaluated 5,034 suicides by youth aged 5-19 years that occurred from 2015 to 2016. Of 3,133 U.S. counties, more than two-thirds were designated as mental health workforce shortage areas. Read more...

According to a new study, children exposed to parental incarceration had worse access to primary care and more unmet dental and mental health care needs than their peers, even after accounting for income, insurance status, rurality, and other important factors. With the United States having the highest incarceration rate in the world, these barriers currently place more than 5 million children who have experience the incarceration of a parent at risk of worse mental and physical health outcomes because of poor access to early health interventions.

The study was published in Academic Pediatrics and authored by Drs. Rohan Khazanchi, Nia Heard-Garris, and Tyler Winkelman from Boston Children’s Hospital/Boston Medical Center, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, and Hennepin Healthcare, respectively. The researchers evaluated the relationships between having an incarcerated parent and health care use and access throughout childhood and adolescence.

“Exposure to parental incarceration is a key adverse childhood experience with physical and mental health impacts across the course of the lives of these kids,” Dr. Heard-Garris from Lurie Children’s explains. “They are exposed to nearly five times as many adverse childhood experiences as their peers, and we know that is also unfortunately associated with increased incidence of learning and developmental disabilities, physical health conditions, and mental health conditions in adulthood.”

Parental incarceration is also disproportionately concentrated among Black, poor, and rural children. The inequitable and racialized distribution of parental incarceration can lead to other adverse exposures, including child poverty.

“While children and adolescents are living with their other parent or caregiver, parental incarceration can disrupt access to care for them through the loss of health insurance and fewer caregivers to help with responsibilities like routine healthcare visits,” explains Dr. Winkelman, the senior author of the study. Read more...

Research Brief: Family-Level and Paternal Factors Affect Maternal Mental Health 

New research published in Archives of Women’s Mental Health examined the relationship between maternal mental health and paternal health behaviors and maternal, paternal, and infant factors, and found that considering mental health as a family experience may help advance the understanding of postpartum maternal mental illness.

The study informs family science by demonstrating how mental health within family systems and among new parents is interconnected, report the researchers. This, they say, can help determine appropriate interventions to best meet the mental health needs of mothers during the postnatal time period.

Three researchers from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago—Clarissa Simon, PhD, MPH, Research Scientist with the Family and Child Health Innovations Program (FCHIP), Smith Child Health Outcomes, Research and Evaluation Center; Anne Bendelow, MPH, Senior Statistician, Data Analytics and Reporting; and Craig Garfield, MD, Attending Physician, Hospital-Based Medicine and Director of FCHIP—contributed to the study. Pediatric research at Lurie Children’s is conducted through Stanley Manne Children's Research Institute.

Simon CD, Bendelow A, Bryan M, Garfield CF. Mental Health as a Family Experience: Relationship of Paternal Characteristics with Maternal Perinatal Depressive Symptoms in a Matched Sample. Archives of Women’s Mental Health. 2022 Aug. 19 (Epub ahead of print). doi: 10.1007/s00737-022-01254-4

Exposure to gun violence is having a negative impact on the mental health of Chicago’s youth, according to the latest study from Voices of Child Health in Chicago. The study found:

Chicagoans have been experiencing an uptick in gun violence and this is resulting in negative effects on youth, as violence exposure is associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and other internalizing symptoms, such as anxiety or depression. Many respondents in the survey indicated that their children have seen or heard news about gun violence (nearly 48 percent), while 27 percent said that their children have heard gunshots when at home.

The impact on children’s mental health is apparent. The survey also revealed that 20 percent of parents said their children’s mental health was impacted by gun violence. This finding aligns with findings of the Child Welfare League of America, which also reported that more than 25 percent of U.S. children witnessed an act of violence in their homes or schools within the past year.

“We know that both gun violence and youth mental health are top-of-mind concerns about child health among Chicago parents,” said Matthew M. Davis, MD, MAPP, Chair of the Department of Medicine at Lurie Children’s, Executive Vice-President and Chief Community Health Transformation Officer at the Patrick M. Magoon Institute for Healthy Communities at Lurie Children’s and Chair of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “It is clear from this latest survey that many youth in Chicago are exposed either directly or indirectly to gun violence, and we must work together to reduce the impact on their health and well-being.”

The consequential toll on youth has created a differential impact across the city. Children who lived on the South side were over three times more likely to hear gunshots when at home compared with children who lived on the North side, something that aligns with prior research. Read more or download the full report (.pdf).

In the fall of 2019—before the onset of COVID-19—emergency departments in Illinois experienced a spike in visits from youth ages 5 to 19 with suicidal thoughts or ideas, according to a new study from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. There was an additional surge in these types of visits during the pandemic, the study found.

The study was published November 14 in the journal Pediatrics.

“A lot of people have talked about mental health problems in youth during the pandemic, but it was happening before the pandemic,” said corresponding author Audrey Brewer, MD, MPH, instructor of pediatrics at Feinberg and a pediatrician at Lurie Children’s. “This has been an issue for so long, and it’s getting worse.”

Although the study focused on Illinois data, the study authors said the diverse demographics of Illinois’ population are representative of the general population of the United States.

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among children and adolescents in the U.S. and has increased over 45% between 1999 and 2020, when more than 47,000 adolescents ages 10 to 19 died. There is a growing incidence of youths seeking emergency care with suicidal thoughts, which relate to the growing prevalence of depression, anxiety, and severe mental illness in recent decades. Individuals who experience suicidal thoughts are more than three times more likely to die by suicide in the future than individuals who don’t have suicidal thoughts.

Using data from 205 Illinois hospitals, the research team examined ER visits involving suicidal ideation—having thoughts of wanting to hurt or harm oneself but not necessarily having made an attempt—and hospital stays resulting from those ER visits.

It is also important to note the study examined the number of visits related to suicide ideation—not the number of individuals—meaning multiple visits could have been made by the same person.

“Suicidal ideation can be thought about as two types: actively thinking about suicide or having thoughts, but not having a plan,” Brewer said. “That could be the difference in why someone might get admitted to the hospital.” Read more...

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