News | Page 3 | Pediatrics

Dr. Anjali Rajadhyaksha Awarded R01 to Identify New Mechanisms for Treating Opioid Dependence

January 23, 2023

Dr. Anjali Rajadhyaksha, professor of neuroscience in pediatrics and Associate Dean of Program Development and Dr. Francis Lee, interim Dean at Weill Cornell Medicine have been awarded an R01 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse their study entitled, “Circuit and Synaptic Mechanisms of Endocannabinoid-Opioid Crosstalk.”

The current opioid crisis has contributed to drug overdoses becoming the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 50 years, with a constant increase in overdose deaths among adolescents. Opioids (morphine, oxycodone, fentanyl) remain the main line of medications for pain management, underscoring the urgent need for new non-opioid treatment options or adjuvant therapies that eliminate the addictive properties, but not the analgesic aspects of these medications.

Adolescence is an important developmental period between childhood and adulthood during which the brain is highly plastic and influenced by a variety of environmental factors. Exposure to substances of abuse during adolescence can impact the developing brain and lead to abnormalities in brain function including neurocognitive performance.

Two Weill Cornell Medicine Faculty Recognized with AAI Awards

January 18, 2023

This article was originaly published in the WCM Newsroom

Two Weill Cornell Medicine faculty members, Dr. Gregory Sonnenberg and Dr. Melody Zeng, are recipients of prestigious awards from the American Association of Immunologists (AAI) for their accomplishments in the field of immunology.

Dr. Sonnenberg is the 2023 recipient of the AAI-BD Biosciences Investigator Award, recognizing his outstanding contributions to the field of immunology as a mid-career scientist, and Dr. Zeng is a recipient of an AAI ASPIRE Award, recognizing her work as an early-career immunologist and potential for advancing the field of immunology. The AAI has been dedicated to advancing immunology to improve health and fostering development opportunities for immunologists since it was founded in 1913.

Experimental Vaccines Offer Long-term Protection Against Severe COVID

December 2, 2022

This article was originally posted on the WCM Newsroom

In 2021, a group of scientists led by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian reported that the Moderna mRNA vaccine and a protein-based vaccine candidate containing an adjuvant, a substance that enhances immune responses, elicited durable neutralizing antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 during infancy in pre-clinical research.

Now a follow-up study by the same group, published Dec. 1 in Science Translational Medicine, has found that the 2-dose vaccines still provide protection against lung disease in rhesus macaques one year after they had been vaccinated as infants.

Karam, Nellis, Receive R34 Award for Platelet Transfusion Strategies Pilot Study

September 28, 2022

This article was originally posted in the Yale Medicine Newsroom.

In a first of its kind pilot study, Oliver Karam, MD, PhD, chief of pediatric critical care at Yale School of Medicine, and Marianne Nellis, MD, MS, associate professor in pediatric critical care at Weill Cornell Medicine, have been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study different platelet transfusion thresholds for children supported by ECMO machines (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation). The ECmo hemoSTAtic Transfusions In Children (ECSTATIC) pilot trial will test two different platelet transfusion strategies, based on two different platelet count thresholds in critically ill infants and children.

Patients have received blood transfusions since as far back as 1820 but they became more widely used on the battlefield during World War I. Ever since, people have been giving and receiving blood, but there are relatively few studies to help doctors determine when and how blood products may be used most effectively.

The National CMV Foundation Awards Claire Otero Funding for CMV Vaccine Development Research

September 15, 2022

Ms. Claire Otero, a graduate assistant in Pediatrics, has been awarded a grant from the National CMV Foundation for her study, “Pre-clinical assessment of HCMV viral Fc receptors as vaccine targets.” The study aims to improve vaccine immunogenicity by targeting proteins expressed by cytomegalovirus (CMV) that interfere with key antibody responses.

CMV is the most common congenital infection, leading to a high burden of hearing loss and neurologic impairment in many affected infants. However, a vaccine against CMV has yet to be licensed, in part due to unclear immune correlates of protection. Recent work has implicated Fc mediated antibody effector functions (aka non-neutralizing antibodies) in prevention of placental CMV transmission.

This is a proof-of-concept study to define the immunogenicity of CMV viral Fc receptors (vFcRs), which function to inhibit Fc-mediated antibody responses. The overall goal is to improve Fc mediated antibody responses against standard vaccine antigens by targeting one or more vFcRs via active vaccination.

Dr. Oleh Akchurin Awarded Grant to Identify Novel Actionable Drivers of Anemia in Children with Chronic Kidney Disease

September 14, 2022

Oleh Akchurin, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Associate Director of the Physician Scientist Training Program in Pediatrics has received funding for his study, “Role of myeloid cells in the pathophysiology of anemia in children with chronic kidney disease” from the Sy Syms Foundation and Van Pelt/Bass Foundation.

Macrophages are known to play a major role in iron metabolism, as evident from non-kidney related pre-clinical and patient-oriented studies. At the same time, disruptions in iron metabolism play a critical role in the development of anemia in children with chronic kidney disease (CKD). However, the role of macrophages, and their precursors, monocytes, in the development of anemia in children with CKD remains poorly understood. In this study, stemming from his previous work, Dr. Akchurin will test how the changes in monocyte/macrophage behavior in CKD affect the production and survival of red blood cells. His research team will specifically focus on the function of ferritin in macrophages in monocytes.

Weill Cornell Medicine PICU Selected to Participate in NIH Funded Study to Improve Outcomes for Children with Septic Shock

August 30, 2022

The Division of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine has been selected as one of 12 sites to participate in the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) sponsored study, “Transfusion and Organ Dysfunction in Pediatric Septic Shock (TROPICS).” Led by Dr. Jennifer Muszynski at Nationwide Children's Hospital, TROPICS seeks to build decision support tools that can be used in future clinical trials to identify when children with septic shock should or should not be transfused with RBCs. Dr. Marianne Nellis, associate professor of pediatrics and director of fellows’ research in pediatrics, will lead the study at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Worldwide, nearly 3 million children die each year from sepsis. Red blood cells (RBC) are transfused in ~50% of children with septic shock, with the intent to enhance oxygen delivery, help resolve shock, and prevent organ dysfunction. However, RBC transfusion has repeatedly been associated with adverse outcomes in critical illness, suggesting harm. For most children with septic shock, we lack data to identify who should or should not be transfused.

The study, conducted in the NewYork-Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, will inform the design and evaluation of precision-medicine based transfusion strategies to improve outcomes in these extremely ill infants and children with septic shock.

Preclinical Study Suggests Gut Bacteria May Influence Viral Entry, Immune Response and Coagulation in COVID-19

August 18, 2022

This article was originally posted in the WCM Newsroom.

A new preclinical study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators found that certain bacteria in the gut may reduce susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection, improve the immune response and prevent blood clots that can occur in severe COVID-19 illness. The study, published Aug. 1 in Gut Microbes, suggests that dietary choices may also have the potential to enhance efforts to combat COVID-19 and its complications in humans.

The composition of the gut microbiome has previously been linked to varying outcomes for health conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease, asthma, COPD and influenza. The investigators, led by senior author Dr. Melody Zeng, assistant professor of immunology in pediatrics in the Department of Pediatrics and a member of the Gale and Ira Drukier Institute for Children’s Research at Weill Cornell Medicine, believed that the same might be true for COVID-19.

New Clues To How Maternal Antibodies Can Protect Babies From Cytomegalovirus

July 26, 2022

This article was originally posted in the WCM Newsroom.

Antibodies that summon virus-engulfing white blood cells may play an important role in protecting infants from potentially serious congenital infection with human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), according to a study led by an investigator at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian.

The study, which appeared June 28 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, was the most comprehensive analysis of its kind to date in HCMV research. The researchers examined antibodies in the blood of 81 mothers infected with HCMV, comparing the properties of the antibodies in mothers who had transmitted versus hadn’t transmitted HCMV to their infants. A key finding was that women in the non-transmission group tended to show higher levels of the white blood cell-summoning mechanism, known as antibody-dependent cellular phagocytosis, against HCMV.

Scientists Identify a Key Molecular Protector of Gut Health

July 13, 2022

This article was originally published in WCM Newsroom.

A protein called Zbtb46, expressed by specialized immune cells, has a major role in protecting the gastrointestinal tract from excessive inflammation, according to a study from researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine.

The finding, which appears July 13 in Nature, is a significant advance in the understanding of how the gut maintains health and regulates inflammation, which could lead to better strategies for treating diseases like inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).