News

Dr. Chani Traube, the Gerald M. Loughlin, MD Professor of Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine, has been awarded a $3.4 million grant, with the possibility of extending to a total of $17 million over five years, from the National Institutes of Health, for a large-scale clinical trial called Optimizing Pain Treatment in Children on Mechanical ventilation (OPTICOM).

OPTICOM, funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, is part of the NIH’s HEAL KIDS PAIN initiative. The OPTICOM study will enroll 644 children in 14 pediatric intensive care units across the United States that are part of the institute’s Collaborative Pediatric Critical Care Research Network. This randomized clinical trial is designed to determine if adding acetaminophen or ketorolac, together or separately, to opioid-based pain control reduces pain in children with acute respiratory failure.

Weill Cornell Medicine was awarded a $4.2 million Program Project Grant renewal from the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). This will fund the development of a vaccine that can prevent the cytomegalovirus (CMV) from being transmitted from mother to baby during pregnancy—the most common congenital infection worldwide.

The prestigious Program Project Grant has the possibility to be extended for a total of five years and $20.4 million to support collaborative, multi-project research toward effective information sharing and research synergy that may speed the path to a vaccine.

Several companies, like Moderna and Merck, are testing vaccines for their ability to protect pregnant women from CMV infection, thereby reducing the chances of transmission to the fetus. However, Dr. Sallie Permar, the chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine, is leading the program to test vaccine approaches that will prevent transmission of the virus to protect the developing fetus.

Worldwide, about one in 200 babies is born with CMV and one-quarter of them experience long-lasting impairments, including hearing loss, smaller than average head size (microcephaly), developmental delays and seizures.

Research at Weill Cornell Medicine suggests that childhood immunization against HIV could one day provide protection before risk of contracting this potentially fatal infection dramatically increases in adolescence.   

The study, published Aug. 30 in Science Immunology, demonstrated that a series of six vaccinations containing a modified protein from the surface of HIV particles stimulated initial steps of a potent immune response in young non-human primates. This difficult-to-achieve response represents an important step toward providing full and potentially life-long protection against the virus, the researchers say.

Immunizing young children, rather than adults, makes sense because risk factors for HIV infection rise steeply when adolescents become sexually active, according to senior author Dr. Sallie Permar, the Nancy C. Paduano Professor in Pediatrics and chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine. 

It is with sadness and in reverence that I share with you of the passing of Dr. Maria New. Perhaps you’ve strolled by her portrait on the 6th floor and wondered about her. Dr. New has roots at Cornell, where she earned her undergraduate degree, and went on to serve for 22 years as the first woman chair of pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine, one of the first women in the country to hold such a role. Dr. New paved the path for many as a physician, a leader, and as an internationally renowned physician scientist.