July 17, 2024

The Future of Healing: Mapping New Frontiers in Tissue Repair and Regeneration

Developing therapies that improve the body’s repair mechanisms requires a deeper understanding of the basic science behind the complex biological processes in injury repair and regeneration. The knowledge we generate at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago promises to profoundly affect how we treat certain diseases and congenital disorders. Leading these efforts within Manne Research Institute are Paul Schumacker, PhD, Patrick M. Magoon Distinguished Professor in Neonatal Research, and Arun Gosain, MD, Division Head of Plastic Surgery, whose exciting discoveries about how tissue repairs and regenerates may lead to therapies and better treatments for both children and adults.

SCIENCE SHOWCASE

On July 12, Stanley Manne Children's Research Institute marked the 50th anniversary of the enactment of the National Research Act. The act created federal rules to protect human participants in research and led to the formation of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research to identify ethical standards for research involving humans. The protection for human research subjects in the United States evolved throughout the 20th century as a result of a several incidences of unregulated, unethical research conducted worldwide, most notably the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (1932–1972). Conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service, the study involved hundreds of Black men, many of whom were infected with syphilis. Though the men were given free medical examinations, they were not told about their disease and were denied treatment with penicillin, a proven cure, when it became available in the 1950s. The U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare stopped the study only after its existence was made public and it began facing backlash.

The passage of the National Research Act 50 years ago, along with subsequent updates to it, put into place mechanisms to protect human subjects in research, such as informed consent and voluntary participation, ensuring the ethical treatment of all who take part. Today, Manne Research Institute and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago are dedicated to the highest ethical standards for human subjects research. Behind the vigilance of the Office of Research Integrity and Compliance and the Office of Clinical and Community Trials, and the focus of our research community, we move our science forward under the principles and spirit established by the National Research Act.

The Role of Nurses in Medical Device Innovation

Nurses face myriad challenges that affect the way they deliver care, and those problems and unmet needs are the seeds of innovation, said Lori Irvin, BSN, RN, CPN, a nurse innovator at Children’s National Hospital. As the featured speaker at a recent Consortium for Technology & Innovation in Pediatrics (CTIP) seminar, "The Role of Nurses in Medical Device Innovation," she introduced nurses to possibilities for them to excel in innovation spaces and encouraged medical technology and device founders to include nurses as principal investigators for their research. Lori shared her inspiration to join the medical field, her journey to become a nurse, and how her own curiosity helped her invent a device that improves the safety and wellbeing of hospitalized patients. Lori wants nurses to see challenges as possibilities that can lead to innovative and pragmatic solutions that have positive effects on the lives of patients, and she highlighted a few examples of exemplary nurse innovators and the technology they helped to develop. She also emphasized that nurses can be valuable collaborators on research teams, explaining that companies developing medical devices or tools that will eventually be used by nurses should include a nurse on the team at the beginning of the development cycle.

CTIP, a pediatric medical device accelerator based at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and Innovate2Impact, the innovation hub for Lurie Children’s, collaborated to develop this seminar. Learn more about how to move pediatric medical technologies and innovation forward by visiting the CTIP and Innovate2Impact websites. Contact us to request access to the presentation to learn more about Lori’s experiences as a nurse innovator and her insights about how to innovate solutions to the problems encountered daily at the bedside.

NEWS FROM THE RESEARCH PILLARS

Can Getting Involved in Racial Justice Activism Improve Mental and Physical Health of Black and Latinx Teens?

Lurie Children’s receives $3.8 million NIH grant to launch the first of its kind randomized behavioral clinical trial

Three hundred Black and Latinx teens in Chicago will be recruited to participate in the first clinical trial to measure the potential health benefits of youth-driven racial justice activism. The five-year study, funded by a $3.8 million grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, will assess whether activism can lower depression symptoms in minoritized teens, as well as alter physiological factors known to be increased with exposure to racism, such as blood pressure and markers of stress and inflammation in the blood.

Led by Nia Heard-Garris, MD, MBA, MSc, from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Elan Hope, PhD, from Policy Research Associates, the study will randomly assign half of the participants to the intervention group and the other half to the control group. Teens in the intervention group will receive summer-long training on the skills needed to conduct impactful advocacy campaigns, while the control group will learn what Dr. Heard-Garris calls “adulting 101” or life skills ranging from typical adult tasks, like banking to succeeding in college. Data on psychological and physiological measures will be collected from both groups at baseline and then at six-month intervals for two years after the intervention.

“This clinical trial is innovative in that it addresses activism as health promotion,” said Dr. Heard-Garris, researcher and pediatrician at Lurie Children’s and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “It is well-documented that structural racism and discrimination lead to chronic stress and health deterioration, including metabolic syndrome, obesity and diabetes. Activism may be an untapped tool that could be utilized to improve the long-term wellbeing of Black and Latinx youth.”

The current clinical trial builds on the promising outcomes from the pilot study conducted by Dr. Heard-Garris with funding from Manne Research Institute. Dr. Heard-Garris leads the ARISE (Adversity, Racism, Inequities, Structures and Empowerment) Health Laboratory at Manne Research Institute.

MANNE RESEARCH INSTITUTE IN THE MEDIA

• Bladder Buzz: Technologies to Improve Bladder Surgery and Monitoring - EurekAlert
• Testing the Effectiveness of Youth Activism as a Mental Health Intervention - News Medical
• Biological Mechanism Discovered That Could Lead to New Treatments for Neurological Disorders and Cancers - MedicalXpress
• Mediterranean Diet Could Improve Your Kid’s Heart Health. Here’s How to Follow It, According to Experts - CNN Health
• Schools to Only Flag Parents About ‘Serious Safety Issues’ if Change Approved by Board of Education - ABC 7
• Spotlight on Sustainability and the Surgeon’s Agenda - Omnia Health
• Gun Violence a Public Health Crisis: What the Surgeon General Declaration Means - WGN TV
• The ‘Dad Bod’ Is Not Inevitable, Even if Evolution Helped Make It Happen - Washington Post

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