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Congratulations to Dr. Julia Buirkle on being awarded the 2023 CATCH grant by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in recognition of her outstanding work in child health.

The Community Access to Child Health (CATCH) program, offered by the AAP, supports pediatricians in their efforts to collaborate with communities and advance the health of all children. With the CATCH Grant, Dr. Buirkle will work closely with Team KiPOW!, a national nonprofit organization, to implement school wellness policy in underserved elementary/middle schools and help children reach their full physical, emotional, and academic potential through improved nutrition and physical activity.

As part of the project, Dr. Buirkle and her team at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, known as “Team KiPOW! Cornell” will work with P.S. 083 Luis Munoz Rivera School in East Harlem in the form of an after-school program and study its impact on the health of participating students through collecting questionnaires and biometric data. This project also offers a valuable opportunity for medical students and residents to gain training and experience in nutrition and lifestyle counseling.

Katiana Garagozlo M.D. is a PGY-6 fellow in our Pediatric Pulmonology Program at NewYork-Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital at Weill Cornell Medical Center. Dr. Garagozolo completed her residency at Broward Health Medical Center/Salah Foundation Children’s Hospital and medical school at the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine.

Hi Dr. Garagozlo, will you share with us what life looks like for a third-year Pediatric Pulmonology fellow?

As a third-year fellow, our clinical responsibilities are reduced compared to that of the first-year fellow. Our time is spent focusing on completion of research projects and other scholarly work. We also act in the role of chief fellow, which includes administrative responsibilities such as creating the fellow on-call schedules, as well as assisting the program director in creating the didactic schedules.

This article was originally posted in Neurology Live Spotlight News

New interim results from the phase 2 open-label NEXUS (NCT04528706), 96-week study on leriglitazone (Minoryx Therapeutics), a peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ agonist, for pediatric cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy (cALD) showed that all evaluable patients were clinically stable and radiologically displayed disease arrest or lesion growth stabilization after 24 weeks of treatment.1 This analysis supports the use of leriglitazone to treat pediatric patients with progressive cALD, a rapidly fatal neurodegenerative phenotype of X-linked Adrenoleukodystrophy characterized by inflammatory brain demyelination.2

Among the 11 evaluable patients that demonstrated lesion growth deceleration or disease arrest (95% confidence interval [CI]: 71.5, 100), 5 showed arrested disease (45.5%, 95% CI, 13.9–68.4%) and all had met the pre-defined continuation criteria for the trial. Notably, the median change from baseline was 0.0 (0.0–1.0) for the neurological function score (NFS) and 0.0 (0.0–3.0) for the Loes score (LS).

The Department of Pediatrics has launched a new pilot post-baccalaureate program for individuals from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine and science, socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, and persons with disabilities who intend to pursue medical school training. The program is designed to diversify the medical and scientific workforce and will offer non-academic professional development to selected individuals currently employed within the Department of Pediatrics. Eligible candidates must be currently employed as a research assistant, research technician, or simulation technologist and must have graduated from an undergraduate institution with a minimum GPA of 3.2, with intentions of pursuing a MD or MD/PhD degrees. The program will provide selected candidates with resources for the Medical College Admissions Test, individualized and group mentorship/coaching meetings, and information on interview skills/strategies, time and stress management, financial aid, and critical analysis and reasoning.

Dr. Stefan Worgall, Distinguished Professor of Pediatric Pulmonology and Division Chief of the Pediatric Pulmonology, Allergy and Immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine and has been awarded an R01 by the National Institute of Health for his study, “Respiratory sphingolipid synthesis involved in airway hyperreactivity and viral-triggered asthma.”

For years, researchers have studied the genetic factors that contribute to childhood asthma, a disease that affects millions of children worldwide. Through their research, they have discovered that changes in sphingolipid production may play a key role in the development of asthma. The researchers have found that children with asthma have decreased sphingolipid synthesis, especially in the presence of common asthma risk genotypes. They have also found that rhinovirus , the most common trigger for asthma attacks in children, may further impair sphingolipid synthesis.

This article was originally posted in the WCM newsroom.

A team led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Scripps Research and the University of Chicago has identified an antibody that appears to block infection by all dominant variants of the virus that causes COVID-19, including Omicron, the most recent. Their discovery could lead to more potent vaccines and new antibody-based treatments. 

In a study published March 6 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, senior author Dr. Patrick Wilson, the Anne E. Dyson Professor of Pediatric Research and a member of the Gale and Ira Drukier Institute for Children’s Health at Weill Cornell Medicine, and his colleagues tested antibodies derived from patient blood samples against successive versions of the virus that emerged during the pandemic. One of these proteins, dubbed S728-1157, proved highly effective at neutralizing not only older variants but also seven subtypes of Omicron. 

“The pandemic is over, but the virus is around for the long haul. If not well controlled, it could cause annual epidemics,” said Dr. Wilson. “This antibody and the insight it provides could help us avoid yearly surges of COVID-19 or if there is another coronavirus pandemic.”

Han-Wei Wu, M.D. is a first-year fellow in the joint pediatric hematology/oncology fellowship program at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He completed medical school at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and residency at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

What does fellowship look like for a first-year pediatric hematology/oncology fellow?

First-year fellowship is a clinically heavy year. We complete blocks in inpatient and outpatient services at both institutions. It is a combination of busy inpatient primary team services, consults, outpatient blocks, and call nights/weekends. There is also protected teaching/lecture for 1 hour during morning and noon conferences. 

Dr. Ahsan Uddin is a second-year fellow in the Pediatric Endocrinology Program. He attended medical school at St. George’s University School of Medicine and completed his Internal Medicine-Pediatrics residency at Beaumont Health in Michigan. Dr. Uddin splits his clinical time with research as part of the Meyer-Teruel Lab with a focus on steroid-induced obesity and metabolic dysregulations.

Why did you pursue a fellowship at Weill Cornell Medicine?

My wife is born and bred in Brooklyn, NY, so after I completed my residency in Michigan we had planned to come back to NYC to settle down full-time. When looking for a program for fellowship, I wanted to be at a hospital with a record of excellence in patient care, a strong clinical training program and broad opportunities for research.

The New York State Pediatric Resident Advocacy Coalition (NYS-PRAC) is a group of NYC pediatric residents who work together to collaborate on child health advocacy initiatives. In 2022 the group developed and distributed Childhood Covid Vaccination posters that have been circulating around New York State hospitals. The group recently launched their second project, a cannabis edible advocacy campaign, that aims to educate families of young children about the risk of cannabis ingestion and safe storage practice as recreational cannabis use becomes legal in NY.

The cannabis edible advocacy campaign consists of three parts: creating patient education materials, developing op-Ed’s about the resident’s experience with cannabis edible ingestions, and advocating to NY State legislators about cannabis management to ensure package limits of 100mg THC for edible Cannabis-which recently became law.

The NYS-PRAC worked with various partners to create the new patient education materials, including the New York Office of Cannabis Management and NYS AAP Chapters 1, 2, and 3, who reviewed and approved their resources, and the NY/NJ Association Pediatric Program Directors (APPD) who helped fund production and distribution of the printed resources to the NYS Pediatric Residency Programs.

The materials are available in both English and Spanish and can be downloaded below:

Food, glorious food! Not only is it fundamental to our survival; it’s at the very heart of our lives and our diverse cultural backgrounds. And it plays a starring role in our social gatherings, whether at home or at a favorite restaurant. Our memories and our emotions, too, are inextricably bound up with food.

However, “there is no one ‘perfect’ way to eat, or one ideal relationship with food,” says Isabel Reckson, a registered dietitian and certified diabetes care and education specialist in the Divisions of Pediatric Endocrinology and Pediatric Nephrology at Weill Cornell Medicine. Every family and every child is unique, she says.

“Generally, a healthy relationship with food allows us to make choices that honor our body and our hunger without guilt. Balance and flexibility in our eating choices are paramount to that relationship, one we often need to work on and reassess throughout our lives as we grow and change.”

What healthy eating habits can parents foster in their children?

Parents are the greatest role models for their young children and teens alike, starting with positive language around food and food choices. Reckson recommends an all-inclusive approach to food, in which no foods are “good” or “bad.”

Pediatrics Weill Cornell Medicine Appointments & Referrals: (646) 962-KIDS (646) 962-5437 Chair's Office: Weill Cornell Medicine 525 E 68th St.
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