News

In recognition of National Rubber Ducky Day on January 13, our department hosted a special event that brought together faculty, staff, and students for a day of connection and creativity. The celebration included coffee with Department Chair Dr. Sallie Permar, hands-on crafts, and the official introduction of our new department mascot. The rubber ducky mascot symbolizes approachability, community, and a spirit of engagement, and will serve as a recognizable presence at future Children's Health events and initiatives. The event highlighted our department’s commitment to fostering a welcoming and collaborative environment.

This month’s Epilepsy Explained focuses on childhood absence epilepsy. Dr. Zachary Grinspan, Director of Pediatric Epilepsy Research at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, answers questions about childhood absence epilepsy including what to look for, how it’s diagnosed, and what the long-term prognosis is for children with absence epilepsy. Listen here!

A Weill Cornell Medicine investigator and other members of a technical advisory group to the World Health Organization and United Nations Children’s Fund have outlined measures that nations can take to ensure that children’s health is accounted for within climate change goals. The authors discuss concrete and achievable indicators in a commentary published Oct. 1 in The Lancet Planetary Health.

“Children have specific needs that often get overlooked,” said lead author Dr. Ilan Cerna-Turoff, an assistant professor of epidemiology in emergency medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. “We’re making sure that doesn’t happen.”

Dr. Ilan Cerna-Turoff. Credit: Travis Curry

Prior exposure to coronaviruses that cause ordinary colds can boost the immune system’s ability to attack a vulnerable site on the COVID-19-causing coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, according to a study led by investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine. The finding suggests a new vaccination strategy that might provide broader and more durable protection against SARS-CoV-2 strains compared with existing vaccines—and might also protect against other emergent coronaviral threats.

In the study, published Oct. 9 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, the researchers analyzed human antibody responses to the base of SARS-CoV-2’s outer spike protein. This segment, known as the S2 subunit, mediates the coronavirus’s entry into a host cell, and because of this critical function does not vary much between different coronavirus subfamilies. Thus, targeting it successfully could help provide broad protection against existing and future coronavirus threats. Although exposure to SARS-CoV-2 alone elicits a weak antibody response against S2, the researchers found evidence that prior exposure to common cold coronaviruses, especially one called OC43, can prime the immune system for a much more effective anti-S2 response—one that may be able to neutralize a wide range of coronaviruses.