News

Congratulations to Lisa Giulino Roth, M.D., Director of Pediatric Oncology and Associate Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics, Medicine, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, on being awarded the 2021 Hyundai Hope Scholar Grant, funded by Hyundai Hope On Wheels, for her project, Targeting latent viral antigens in EBV+ Burkitt Lymphoma.

For this study, Dr. Roth is developing a novel approach to the treatment of lymphomas associated with Epstein Barr Virus (EBV).  Using epigenetic therapies, Dr. Roth and her laboratory team will determine if they can alter the proteins expressed by EBV and make the tumor more susceptible to killing by immune cells.  If successful, the work will lead to a completely new treatment approach for lymphomas associated with EBV.

Dr. Alexander Ja-Ho Chou is an assistant professor of pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine and an attending pediatrician at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. He specializes in the care of children with pediatric sarcomas including osteosarcoma, Ewing sarcoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, synovial sarcoma, desmoplastic small round cell tumor, alveolar soft part sarcoma, rhabdoid tumors, epithelioid sarcomas, infantile fibrosarcomas, and other rare sarcomas of childhood, and also cares for children with other common solid tumors such as neuroblastoma, Wilm's tumor, hepatoblastoma, germ cell tumors, and other rarer tumors of childhood.

What made you want to become a pediatrician AND an oncologist?

Congratulations to Emily Wasserman, M.D. on being selected as the recipient of the 2022-23 Children’s Health Investigator Fund, co-funded by the Department of Pediatrics and the Gale and Ira Drukier Institute for Children's Health. The funding will support Dr. Wasserman’s efforts in studying MISC/SARS-CoV-2 infections under the Department of Pediatrics Young Investigator Award.

Under the mentorship of Virginia Pascual, M.D., Director of the Drukier Institute, Dr. Wasserman and immunology experts at Weill Cornell Medicine will study a rare, but severe, SARS-CoV-2 related illness in children called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C). The project is part of a national, multi-institutional collaboration led by Dr. Pascual. Using biological specimens and clinical data from over 200 children, Dr. Wasserman and the team hope to reveal the abnormal immune responses underlying MIS-C. The study offers an unparalleled opportunity to unravel the mystery behind this enigmatic illness and the pediatric response to SARS-CoV2 infection.

Congratulations to Eric Mallack, M.D. and Weill Cornell Medicine collaborators on the approval of their upcoming international gene therapy trial entitled, “A Phase 1/2 Open-Label, Multicenter, Dose Ranging and Confirmatory Study to Assess the Safety, Tolerability and Efficacy of PBKR03 Administered to Pediatric Subjects with Early Infantile Krabbe Disease (Globoid Cell Leukodystrophy)."  Dr. Eric Mallack will serve as Primary Investigator of the study.

Infantile Krabbe disease, or globoid cell leukodystrophy, is a genetic disorder of the nervous system that usually results in death before the age of two. It is caused by mutations in the GALC gene which encodes an enzyme responsible for the breakdown of multiple lipids in the brain. In Krabbe disease, there is a toxic accumulation of these lipids in cells throughout the nervous system. This results in progressive neurodegeneration: brain atrophy, spasticity, loss of hearing and vision, seizures, weight loss, aspiration, loss of development milestones and early mortality.