Research Bulletin
News from the Child Health Research Institute
January 2024
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In this Issue:
- Heart Diseases AOE Hosts Pediatric Heart & Vascular Diseases Mini Research Summit
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Update from Executive Director Dr. Ann Anderson Berry
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Dr. Rebekah Gundry and CHVR Receive NIH COBRE Award
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The Patient Care and Research Connection: Dr. Jeffrey Salomon
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Drs. Thomas Blount, Sunyoung Kim, Nora Sarvetnik, Elizabeth VanWormer Receive November 2023 CHRI Grants
- Disseminating Discoveries - December Publications
- Funding Opportunities
- CityMatCH: Call for Abstract, Workshop, Facilitated Discussion & Symposia Submissions
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Upcoming CHRI Event: Friday, Jan. 19, 7:45 - 11 a.m.
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Heart Diseases AOE Hosts Pediatric Heart & Vascular Diseases Mini Research Summit |
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The Child Health Research Institute's Heart Diseases Area of Emphasis (AOE) will host a Pediatric Heart & Vascular Diseases mini research summit on Friday, Jan. 19, from 7:45 to 11 a.m. Scheduled talks and speakers are:
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Brian McCrindle, MD, section head, Preventative Cardiology & Epidemiology, SickKids: "Dyslipidemia in Children: Who Needs Meds, What and Why?"
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Angela Yetman, MD, medical director, Marfan & Thoracic Aorta Diseases Program, Children’s Nebraska, and professor, Division of Cardiology, Department of Pediatrics: "Evaluation of Subclinical Cardiac, Vascular and Hepatic Dysfunction in Patients with Turner Syndrome"
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Majid Jadidi, PhD, Biomechanics, assistant professor, UNO: "Adult-to-Pediatric Translation in Cardiovascular Biomechanics"
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Camille Hancock Friesen, MD, cardiothoracic surgeon, Children’s Nebraska, and professor, Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Department of Surgery: "Cardiac and Vascular Health in Patients with Congenital Heart Disease Undergoing Surgical Repair: Standard Risk Assessment versus Novel Biomarkers”
The event will occur in the Glow Auditorium on Children's Nebraska's campus and virtually over Zoom. In-person registration is not required. Those planning to attend virtually or who are visitors to Children’s will need to register to receive relevant information.
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CHRI Priorities & Activities:
Update from Executive Director Ann Anderson Berry, MD, PhD
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Happy New Year! I am excited to kick off 2024 by highlighting some new beginnings and new opportunities!
The Heart Diseases AOE mini summit is planned for Friday, Jan. 19, beginning with grand rounds in person or on Zoom. Our keynote speaker is Brian McCrindle, MD, MPH, section head, Preventative Cardiology & Epidemiology, SickKids. He will be followed by a variety of local Child Health Research Institute investigators who are doing innovative research in cardiovascular health. We will continue our regular AOE meetings for all the areas of emphasis throughout the year. If you are looking to connect with collaborators or get started with an affinity group, this is a wonderful way to engage in research with CHRI. If you haven’t identified with an AOE yet, please reach out to CHRI@unmc.edu to join the ones you are interested in exploring.
I am excited to announce upcoming new and continuing funding opportunities for CHRI members. We will be accepting applications for another CHRI scholar in the coming year with an anticipated start date of July 1. This is a three-year mentored training grant for physician-scientists in the early stages of their career. The goal of this funding is to transition to a K award by the end of the funding period. Details will be announced in the coming weeks.
Additionally, CHRI and the Pediatric Cancer Research Group (PCRG) will have two special requests for application this year – one in artificial intelligence and the other will be our continuing award in studying the impact of health disparities on child health. These will both be $50,000 awards and scheduled for July 1 start dates; CHRI and PCRG will each award a grant for each category.
And finally, congratulations to the Center for Heart and Vascular Research, Dr. Rebekah Gundry and Dr. Jeffrey Salomon on the funding of a new Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence award. This award is a fantastic achievement and will encourage growth and development in cardiovascular research opportunities at UNMC.
Ann
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Rebekah Gundry, PhD; Dele Davies, MD. senior vice chancellor for academic affairs; Jeff Salomon, MD, assistant professor, Division of Pediatric Critical Care and Department of Physiology; and Ann Anderson Berry, MD, PhD, executive director, CHRI, celebrate COBRE award. |
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Dr. Rebekah Gundry and CHVR
Receive NIH COBRE Award
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Rebekah Gundry, PhD, director of the Center for Heart & Vascular Research (CHVR) and a member of CHRI, recently received word that the National Institutes of Health has selected her group’s application for a prestigious Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) Phase 1 award. The award entails more than $11 million in funding over five years.
COBRE awards build capacity in an area of biomedical research through the establishment of a center of excellence that helps develop a critical mass of investigators who are able to compete effectively for independent research funding and improve infrastructure in the center’s research area.
Each COBRE award funds a research core and three to five research projects led by early-career Research Project Leaders (RPLs). The research core, under Dr. Gundry’s leadership, will invest in educational programs, the CHVR Bioassay core and enhancement of research using large animal models.
One of the RPLs teaming up with Dr. Gundry is Jeffrey Salomon, MD, assistant professor in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine.
Dr. Salomon has been funded as a CHRI Scholar since 2020. His research project (RP) component of the CHVR COBRE is titled, “Intestinal Dysbiosis Exacerbates Inflammation Following Cardiopulmonary Bypass in Congenital Heart Disease.”
This milestone in his career, along with receiving a Career Development Award from the American Heart Association in 2023, highlights the success of the CHRI Scholars Program in its goal to grow the number of funded physician-scientists while promoting career development.
“The COBRE funding for the CHVR program is a fantastic opportunity to develop early career scientists and will impact UNMC's national reputation and improve our ability to recruit and train talented faculty, students and postdoctoral candidates," said Ann Anderson Berry, MD, PhD, executive director, Child Health Research Institute. "It is particularly exciting that a pediatric faculty member and CHRI scholar (Dr. Salomon) are included on this award. Congratulations to Dr. Gundry and the whole team.”
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The Patient Care and Research Connection: Dr. Jeffrey Salomon
Dr. Jeffrey Salomon talked to us about how care for his patients fuels his research that received COBRE funding within the CHVR. His responses are below.
The first step of my research into the gut microbiome in congenital heart disease occurred after listening to a lecture about the gut microbiome in sepsis. The second was when I observed a connection between the clinical features that many children experience after cardiac surgery and the inflammatory insult patients experience with sepsis. I care for these children after their cardiac surgery and see the inflammatory response and low cardiac output some children have because of the operation and the inflammation caused by cardiopulmonary bypass. This led me to ask if similar things were happening in the gut. Our initial research demonstrated unique changes in the gut microbiome even before surgery in children with congenital heart disease (CHD) compared to children without CHD who were having non-cardiac surgery. Cardiac surgery only made these changes worse.
Next, I asked if the changes we saw in the gut are influencing the inflammation that many of our smallest patients have after cardiac surgery and if there was a way we could improve the gut health before surgery to help them recover faster. My goal has always been to identify ways to help our patients recover faster and get out of the hospital quicker after their cardiac surgery.
The COBRE grant that was just awarded provides funding for a piglet model of cardiopulmonary bypass. My hope is that we can begin to assess some alterations to the gut and see what happens with inflammation after cardiopulmonary bypass. I think interventions are still years away, but during that time, we hope to isolate specific gut modifications that can benefit the children who require heart surgery to reduce the amount of inflammation they have after their heart surgery.
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Drs. Thomas Blount, SunYoung Kim, Nora Sarvetnik, Elizabeth VanWormer Receive November 2023 CHRI Grants |
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The following researchers received CHRI Grants for the November 2023 cycle. For additional information on each grant project, click here.
Thomas Blount, MD, Assistant Professor, Division of Pediatric Cardiology
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Old Concept in New Area-Utilizing Pulsatility Index in Patients with Patent Ductus Arteriosus - $15k
SunYoung Kim, MD, Post Doctoral Research Student
- Alcohol and Notch Pathway Mutations Synergistically Induce Atrioventricular Canal Defects: Potential Rescue by Folic Acid - $15k
Nora Sarvetnik, PhD, Director, Holland Regenerative Medicine Program; Professor, Department of Surgery-Transplant
- Role of Vitamin D receptor genetic risk variants on myeloid tolerance induction in T1D - $50k
Elizabeth VanWormer, DVM, PhD, Assistant Professor and One Health Coordinator, School of Natural Resources, UNL
- Investigating zoonotic pathogen sharing and stunting in children in rural Rwanda - $49,780
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Plan to Attend: CHRI January Seminar Series, January 19
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Join us on Friday, Jan. 19, at noon for the CHRI Seminar Series featuring Alfred Bothwell, PhD, professor, Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, and Wafaa Aldahafiri, graduate studies student, Pharmaceutical Sciences. Dr. Bothwell will speak on "Siglec binding as a biomarker for cancer and inflammatory diseases," and Wafaa will present on "Pharmacokinetics and tissue distribution of a lipid-based extended-release nano-formulation of MO-OH-nap tropolone to enhance pulmonary delivery for the treatment of metastatic osteosarcoma." Email chri@unmc.edu for Zoom information.
Openings Available for Additional 2024 Seminar Speakers
Please email chri@unmc.edu if you would like to present your research at the CHRI Seminar Series in 2024.
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Save the Date: CHRI Pediatric Research Forum, May 9-10
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Disseminating Discoveries -
December Publications
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Articles by CHRI members in highlighted publications. |
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* Department of Pediatrics
† Department of Neurological Sciences
‡ School of Interdisciplinary Informatics
* Pediatric Clinical Pharmacology Program
† Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
‡ Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Cryptosporidium uses CSpV1 to activate host type I interferon and attenuate antiparasitic defenses. Deng S, He W, Gong AY, Li M, Wang Y, Xia Z, Zhang XT, Huang Pacheco AS*, Naqib A, Jenkins M, Swanson PC, Drescher KM, Strauss-Soukup JK, Belshan M, Chen XM. Nature Communications. 2023;14(1):1456.
* Pediatric Gastroenterology
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* Division of Pediatric Cardiology
EHD1-dependent traffic of IGF-1 receptor to the cell surface is essential for Ewing sarcoma tumorigenesis and metastasis. Chakraborty S, Bhat AM, Mushtaq I, Luan H, Kalluchi A, Mirza S, Storck MD, Chaturvedi N, Lopez-Guerrero JA, Llombart-Bosch A, Machado I, Scotlandi K, Meza JL, Ghosal G*, Coulter DW†, Jordan Rowley M*, Band V, Mohapatra BC, Band H‡. Communications Biology. 2023;6(1):758.
* Department of Genetics, Cell Biology & Anatomy
† Division of Pediatric Hematology & Oncology
‡ Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer and Allied Diseases
* Division of Pediatric Hematology & Oncology
* Department of Environmental, Agricultural, and Occupational Health
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Clinical Research Award
Up to $150k /2yrs
Letter of intent due Feb. 12, 2024
Novice Research Grant
UP to $30k /1yr
Concept paper due May 15, 2024
Grants in pediatric brain cancer research
Up to $100k /1yr
Application due June 1, 2024
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Call for Abstract, Workshop, Facilitated Discussion & Symposia Submissions |
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Would you like to share your work with fellow maternal and child health professionals? Would you like to teach a new skill to other MCH leaders?
If you would like to present your work to peers in the field, we are accepting submissions for abstracts, workshops, symposia, and facilitated discussions via our online submission system between now and March 4, 2024.
We welcome and encourage submissions on a variety of parent and child health topics, including but not limited to data use, equity, policy & advocacy, intersectionality, ongoing MCH issues, community based doula and birth workers, and so much more!
Click here for more submission information.
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Child Health Research Institute
986847 Nebraska Medical Center
Omaha, NE 68198-6847
402-559-4032 or 402-955-7907
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