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The preclinical study, published in Science Immunology on Mar. 15, showed that bacteria abundant in the guts of newborns produce serotonin, which promotes the development of immune cells called T-regulatory cells or Tregs. These cells suppress inappropriate immune responses to help prevent autoimmune diseases and dangerous allergic reactions to harmless food items or beneficial gut microbes.

NEW YORK – Michelson Medical Research Foundation (MMRF) and Human Immunome Project (HIP) have awarded Dr. Siyuan Ding (Washington University in St. Louis), Dr. Claire Otero (Weill Cornell Medicine), and Dr. Dennis Schaefer-Babajew (Rockefeller University) the Michelson Prizes: Next Generation Grants, the organizations announced today.

The $150,000 research grants are awarded annually to support early-career scientists advancing human immunology, vaccine discovery, and immunotherapy research for major global diseases.

“Understanding and harnessing the human immune system is the next frontier in biomedicine. Already, breakthrough research in immunology has led to therapies that treat disease, improve human health, and save lives,” said Dr. Gary K. Michelson, founder, and co-chair of Michelson Philanthropies. “Catalytic and flexible philanthropic support helps to fund our brightest young minds to develop high-risk, high-impact science and enable future breakthroughs.”

Research labs are not necessarily known for the leadership opportunities they create. But for Bernard Kühn, MD, the lab helped lay the groundwork of leadership and administrative work that helped him land his current position.

Dr. Kühn stepped into his new role as chief of the division of cardiology in pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian Komansky Children's Hospital, both based in New York City, on Feb. 1.

He began working toward his medical degree in Germany before obtaining a scholarship that let him visit medical schools in the United States. He originally explored pediatrics because he thought it may be good knowledge for when he had his own kids. He eventually fell in love with it thanks to the "charismatic and happy cardiologists that made it look fun and always came to the job with a smile."

"I saw that here physicians scientists do a job that I found really attractive and they were able to be scientifically excellent," Dr. Kühn said. "The healthcare structure in Germany is different, where a lot of physicians are stretched extremely thin, but in the U.S. I had the opportunity to meet many great mentors and become involved in early heart regeneration and genetics research."

For parents and caregivers, winter can feel like a never-ending stretch of coughing and sniffles. During cold and flu season, children can have as many as seven to 10 respiratory infections and spend up to 140 days with a symptom related to a cold, says Dr. Melanie Wilson-Taylor, a pediatrician at NewYork-Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital.

Among the most nagging symptoms of a respiratory virus is a cough. “We are seeing quite a bit of coughs right now, and cases will likely continue to rise for the next few weeks,” says Dr. Wilson-Taylor. “Many of the coughs are caused by colds. But we always tease out the different kinds of coughs and figure out if there’s something more serious happening versus just recurrent viral infections.”

Health Matters spoke to Dr. Wilson-Taylor about what causes a cough, how long they can last, and when to worry.

Dr. Melanie Wilson-Taylor

While therapies targeting type 2 inflammation are effective for many patients with asthma, there is a subset of children that continue to have exacerbations. Thus, there is a need to better understand the underlying mechanism of disease in these patients to develop more effective targeted therapies. Plasma interleukin six (IL-6) has been identified as a potential target for asthma treatment in obese adults with severe persistent asthma and metabolic dysfunction. However, less is known about its role in children.

Every day we’re inundated with the “right” things to do to live a longer life. Drink eight glasses of water a day, they say. Go to the pharmacy for an off-label prescription, advise others. And others task us with the impossible—yet promising—task to just keep a positive mindset.

Today, the average life expectancy of an American is 76.4 years, and in 2023 over 70,000 Americans reached their 100th birthday. But in the Blue Zones, or regions of the world where people live exceptionally long lives, individuals are ten times more likely to live to 100. These places—specifically the Barbagia region of Sardinia, Italy, Okinawa, Japan, Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica; and Icaria, Greece—are packed with centenarians.

NEW YORK (Feb. 13, 2024) — Dr. Sumit Gupta, a physician-scientist whose research focuses on vulnerable subpopulations of children with cancer, has been awarded the eighth annual Gale and Ira Drukier Prize in Children’s Health Research, Weill Cornell Medicine announced today. 

The Drukier Prize honors an early-career pediatrician whose research promises to make significant contributions toward improving the health of children and adolescents. Dr. Gupta is an associate professor in the Department of Paediatrics, Faculty of Medicine and the Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, both at the University of Toronto, and associate scientist and head of the Section of Leukemia and Lymphoma at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto, Ontario. He is being recognized for his research using health data to answer important clinical and health policy questions affecting children living with cancer locally and globally. 

Dr. Gupta’s most recent research includes studying the late effects of cancer therapy in adolescents and young adults, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, and designing and evaluating a program for the early identification of childhood cancers in Kenya and Cameroon, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

NEW YORK (Feb. 16, 2023)—Dr. Juan Pascual, a leading pediatric neurologist, has been appointed chief of the Division of Child Neurology in the Department of Pediatrics at NewYork-Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital and Weill Cornell Medicine, effective March 1.

 In his new role, Dr. Pascual will oversee the child and neonatal neurology divisions with a focus on increasing access to high-quality care, expanding scientific research, and recruiting and developing faculty, clinicians and researchers. Dr. Pascual was recruited to Weill Cornell Medicine as a professor of pediatrics, of neurology and of neuroscience in the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute and an affiliate faculty member in the Sage School of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences on Cornell’s Ithaca campus. He will also grow the rare brain disorders program for patients with undiagnosed, complex or severe neurological diseases.

An experimental mRNA vaccine against human cytomegalovirus (CMV), a common virus that can infect babies during pregnancy, elicited some of the most promising immune responses to date of any CMV vaccine candidate, according to a study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators.

Drs. Corinne Catarozoli, Cori Green, and Stephen Oh receive $100k gift from the Chaus family to support the expansion of Pediatrics Psychology to WCM Pediatric Surgical Service. The expansion would allow patients undergoing surgery access to mental health care concurrently with their medical treatment. Families will be able to meet with a psychologist pre-operatively for support with preparing their child for surgery, managing anticipatory anxiety, addressing potential behavioral concerns, and screen for any psychosocial concerns. Parents experience significant stress and worry in advance of their child’s surgery, both about the procedure itself as well as their child’s future with a medical diagnosis.  Parent guidance on how to speak to their child about the procedure, age-appropriate language to use, and tailoring discussions to specific medical conditions will be offered.  Children and adolescents will pre-emptively learn coping techniques to use to support coping with the stress of surgery. During the surgical admission, a psychologist will also meet with the family to support concerns that arise at the time of the inpatient stay (i.e., adjusting to the hospital, coping with pain, sleep difficulties).  Bedside psychology visits on the unit to both children and parents is an integral part of this service to provide direct and timely mental health care.

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