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News
A three-part series on food allergies featuring Jacqueline Pongracic, MD, head of the Division of Allergy and Immunology; Rachel Story, MD, Allergy and Immunology; and the Bunning Family of the Bunning Food Allergy Project based at Children’s Memorial, aired twice daily on WGN Radio April 30 - May 2.
Go to the Children's Memorial Hospital news room story.
Deborah L. Shelton, Chicago Tribune reporter
April 28, 2008 -- In a Chicago Tribune article about violence and its effects on children in Chicago, Karen Sheehan, MD, MPH, attending physician at Children's Memorial Hospital, Medical Director of the hospital's Injury Prevention and Research Center and Injury Free Coalition for Kids, said that some of the children she sees confide that they have difficulty falling asleep because they feel afraid. She said, "Lack of sleep leads to obesity, attention-deficit disorders and other things that feed into a cycle of poor health."
Her colleague, Maryann Mason, PhD, associate director of the Child Health Data Lab at Children's Memorial Research Center, is conducting research on the physical activity levels of children ages 5 to 10 who live in five primarily low-income black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago. Her team has found that the parents most likely to keep their children indoors weren't always the ones living in areas with the most crime; they were the ones who thought the crime rate was highest. "The higher the parental perception of crime, the more sedentary the kids are after school," Mason said. "It's probably true that they are keeping them inside to play video games and watch TV." Read the Chicago Tribune story.
April 15, 2008 — Rajesh Kumar, MD, and colleagues at Children's Memorial have identified a potential link between respiratory problems and premature birth. Read More.
April 5, 2008 — Lauren M. Pachman, MD, and colleagues have published a study that shows a difference in absorption of a drug administered to juvenile dermatomyositis (JDM) patients when given orally as opposed to intravenously. Read More.
March 24, 2008 -- The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced the appointments to the NIH Council of Councils. The Council is made up of 27 members selected from the NIH Institute and Center (IC) advisory councils and advisory committees to the NIH Office of the Director. The Council will advise the NIH Director on cutting-edge trans-NIH priorities and matters related to the policies and activities of the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives, established by the NIH Reform Act 2006, and the Office of Portfolio Analysis and Strategic Initiatives (OPASI). The Council also will act as an external advisory panel to the IC Directors during the concept approval stage of the review process for trans-NIH initiatives. For the full NIH press release, visit http://www.nih.gov/news/health/mar2008/od-24.htm. Dr. Hendrix will serve as liaison to the National Cancer Institute.
Groundbreaking work by the Mary J.C. Hendrix laboratory and colleagues is elucidating how a protein that governs development of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) also inhibits the growth and spread of malignant melanoma, the deadliest skin cancer.
Children’s Memorial Research Center has begun its latest membership drive and is now accepting membership applications for its seven different programs and seven centers through the following web based application form. After completing this form, please send a copy of your latest NIH Biosketch or a brief resumé to Peg Rainey at: prainey@childrensmemorial.org. Past Articles
Introduction
Established in 1986, Children's Memorial Research Center is the research arm of Children's Memorial Hospital, the pediatric teaching hospital for Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine and one of a handful of institutions in the United States dedicated exclusively to pediatric research. The research center is also one of 13 interdisciplinary research centers and institutes of the Feinberg School, where principal investigators who are part of the research center are full-time faculty members.
Guided by founding director, Bernard L. Mirkin, PhD, MD, the research center became one of the nation's leading free standing pediatric research entities attracting scientists whose work is supported by prestigious federal and private research funding, and which significantly advances the development of cures for the diseases of children. Soon the fast pace and growth of the research endeavors exceeded best estimates. In 1995, the founders of Children's Memorial Research Center realized their dream when a laboratory structure consisting of 71,000 square feet of space was built on Halsted Street. In 2004 – just one decade since its inception – the laboratory facility expanded to 125,000 total square feet of space.
In 2007, under the leadership of Mary J.C. Hendrix, PhD, Children's Memorial Research Center has become a virtual center for all research conducted by Children's Memorial's investigators – whether they work in the facility on Halsted Street, in the hospital, at Marcey Street, at the Feinberg School, or throughout the community. Research funding for Fiscal Year 2007 exceeded $29 million. To date, the research technology portfolio has 12 patent filings and 41 clinical trials. Notable awards include:
- a substantial grant from the Illinois Regenerative Medicine Institute for stem cell research;
- a public-private partnership involving philanthropist Ann Lurie, the National Institutes of Health, the Howard Brown Health Center, and Children's Memorial to support the Adolescent Medicine Trials Network (ATN) for HIV/AIDS research; and
- a generous gift from philanthropists David and Denise Bunning to support a 4-year, multi-site research initiative to study the impact of environmental and genetic factors on children who suffer from food allergies. The initiative is headed by the Bunning Food Allergy Institute at Children's Memorial.
Over 200 investigators, 500 staff and numerous trainees contribute to the seven growing Programs in Basic Research and Translational Medicine: Cancer Biology and Epigenomics, the Mary Ann & J. Milburn Smith Child Health Research Program, Clinical & Translational Research, Developmental Biology, Human Molecular Genetics, Molecular & Cellular Pathobiology and Neurobiology. In addition, there are six Centers of Excellence: Clinical Trials Research, Digestive Diseases & Immunobiology, Falk Brain Tumor Research, HIV/AIDS Research, Obesity Management & Prevention, and the Pediatric Practice Research Group.
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The Medical Research Institute Council (MRIC) was established in 1951 as a private, independent initiative to raise funds for innovative biomedical research. In 1991, the MRIC became affiliated with Children's Memorial, and since that time has raised more than $33 million. The generous support of the MRIC has been responsible for construction of Phase II of the Children's Memorial Research Center laboratory building on Halsted Street in Lincoln Park, endowed professorships for: the president and scientific director, the Neurobiology Program, the Cancer Biology and Epigenomics Program, and the Bernard L. Mirkin Research Scholar. MRIC funding has led to advanced investigations in cancer, heart disease, genetics, microbiology and neonatology.
Prominent cancer biologist Mary J.C. Hendrix, PhD, became the President and Scientific Director of Children’s Memorial Research Center in 2004. Dr. Hendrix is the recipient of a prestigious MERIT Award from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). In 2006, she received the Distinguished Woman Faculty Award from the Feinberg School. Scientific objectives of her laboratory include identifying genes that contribute to cancer metastasis, and her major goal is to define important structure/function relationships that provide the biological basis for new therapeutic strategies. She has published over 200 scientific papers and numerous book chapters. An advocate for science and science policy, Dr. Hendrix has testified before the U.S. Congress to increase funding for biomedical research, and serves on the National Institutes of Health's Council of Councils, the NCI's Board of Scientific Advisors, the Research Advisory Panel for the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Board of Directors for the Annenberg Center for Health Sciences, the Board of Directors of Research!America, and the Board for the Campaign for Medical Research. She is the Past President of FASEB (the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology), which consists of over 70,000 members – the largest coalition of biomedical research societies in the U.S. In 2005, Dr. Hendrix was endowed with the Medical Research Institute Council Professorship for the President and Scientific Director of the Children's Memorial Research Center.
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To encourage a synergy of ideas among investigators in various disciplines, the research center's work is organized around seven interdisciplinary research programs:
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| The "virtual" research center (clockwise from top left): Halsted Street, Marcey Street, Lurie Cancer Center, Children's Memorial Hospital. |
(6) Molecular and Cellular Pathobiology
(7) Neurobiology
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(2) Digestive Diseases & Immunobiology
(3) Falk Brain Tumor Research
(4) HIV/AIDS Research
(5) Obesity Management and Prevention
(6) Pediatric Critical Illness & Injury
(7) Pediatric Practice Research Group
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