Bear Institute Archives

The best of 2024 from Innovation District

December 19, 2024

2024 marked another groundbreaking year for Children’s National Hospital, showcasing remarkable advances across the spectrum of pediatric medicine, research and healthcare innovation. From pioneering surgical procedures to breakthrough artificial intelligence applications, the institution continued to push the boundaries of what’s possible in children’s healthcare. Read on for our list of the most popular articles we published on Innovation District in 2024.

1. Prenatal COVID exposure associated with changes in newborn brain

A study led by researchers at Children’s National Hospital showed that babies born during the COVID-19 pandemic have differences in the size of certain structures in the brain, compared to infants born before the pandemic. The findings suggest that exposure to the coronavirus and being pregnant during the pandemic could play a role in shaping infant brain development.
(3 min. read)

2. Children’s National Hospital again ranked among the best in the nation by U.S. News & World Report

Children’s National Hospital was ranked as a top hospital in the nation by the U.S. News & World Report 2024-25 Best Children’s Hospitals annual rankings. This marks the eighth straight year Children’s National has made the Honor Roll list. The Honor Roll is a distinction awarded to only 10 children’s hospitals nationwide.
(2 min. read)

3. Children’s National performs first ever HIFU procedure on patient with cerebral palsy

In January 2023, a team of multidisciplinary doctors performed the first case in the world of using bilateral high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) pallidotomy on Jesus, a 22-year-old patient with dyskinetic cerebral palsy. The procedure is part of a clinical trial led by Chima Oluigbo, M.D., pediatric neurosurgeon at Children’s National Hospital.
(3 min. read)

4. Novel ultrasound device gets FDA breakthrough designation with Children’s National support

A novel ultrasound device developed by Bloom Standard received the Food and Drug Administration’s valued breakthrough device designation with the help of Children’s National Hospital. The device that enables autonomous, hands-free ultrasound scans to be performed anywhere, by any user.
(2 min. read)

5. First-of-its-kind pilot study on the impacts of Lyme disease in pregnancy and infant development

Understanding the effects of Lyme disease on the developing fetal brain is essential to ensure timely prenatal and postnatal treatments to protect the fetus and newborn. In response to this need, Children’s National Hospital is leading a pilot study to establish the groundwork needed for a larger study to determine the effect of in utero exposure to Lyme disease on pregnancy and early childhood neurodevelopmental outcomes.
(3 min. read)

6. Earliest hybrid HLHS heart surgery kids thrive 5 years later

Five years ago, Cayden was born 6 weeks early weighing less than four pounds and at risk of dying from her critical congenital heart disease. Today, she’s a happy five-year-old. Early diagnosis of her hypoplastic right ventricle, double inlet left ventricle and critical coarctation of the aorta allowed for the team at Children’s National Hospital to create a careful plan for safe delivery and to offer an innovative hybrid HLHS surgical approach at the hospital within 24 hours after she was born.
(1 min. read)

7. Wayne J. Franklin, M.D., F.A.C.C., named senior vice president of the Children’s National Heart Center

Children’s National Hospital appointed Wayne J. Franklin, M.D., F.A.C.C., as the new senior vice president (SVP) of the Children’s National Heart Center. In this role, Dr. Franklin oversees the full spectrum of heart care services including cardiac imaging and diagnostics, interventional cardiology, electrophysiology, cardiac anesthesia, cardiac surgery and cardiac intensive care.
(2 min. read)

8. Artificial – and accelerated – intelligence: endless applications to expand health equity

By pioneering artificial intelligence (AI) innovation programs at Children’s National Hospital, Marius George Linguraru, D.Phil., M.A., M.Sc., and the AI experts he leads are ensuring patients and families benefit from a coming wave of technological advances. The team is teaching AI to interpret complex data that could otherwise overwhelm clinicians.
(4 min. read)

9. Evidence review: Maternal mental conditions drive climbing death rate in U.S.

Painting a sobering picture, a research team led by Children’s National Hospital culled years of data demonstrating that maternal mental illness is an under-recognized contributor to the death of new mothers. They called for urgent action to address this public health crisis.
(3 min. read)

10. Nathan Kuppermann, M.D., M.P.H., named chief academic officer and chair of Pediatrics

Children’s National Hospital appointed Nathan Kuppermann, M.D., M.P.H., as its new executive vice president, chief academic officer and chair of Pediatrics. In this role, Dr. Kuppermann oversees research, education and innovation for the Children’s National Research Institute as well as academic and administrative leadership in the Department of Pediatrics at George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Services.
(2 min. read)

11. First global clinical trial achieves promising results for hypochondroplasia

Researchers from Children’s National Hospital presented findings from the first clinical trial of the medication vosoritide for children with hypochondroplasia – a rare genetic growth disorder. During the phase 2 trial, researchers found vosoritide increased the growth rate in children with hypochondroplasia, allowing them to grow on average an extra 1.8 cm per year.
(2 min. read)

12. Pioneering research center aims to revolutionize prenatal and neonatal health

Since its establishment in July 2023, the Center for Prenatal, Neonatal & Maternal Health Research at Children’s National Hospital has gained recognition through high-impact scientific publications, featuring noteworthy studies exploring the early phases of human development.
(3 min. read)

Radon in school: A hidden worry for eastern Pennsylvania students

December 9, 2024

Some students may be exposed to nearly twice the annual dose of natural background radiation, estimated by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission at 3.1 mSv (310 mrem).

A Children’s National Hospital researcher teamed up with a high school student from Bethlehem, Pa., to shed light on radon, a silent health risk that may be present in some schools.

They examined radon levels in five eastern Pennsylvania school districts. The neighborhoods surrounding all 37 public schools had average radon levels exceeding the federal action level, or 4.0 pCi/L. According to their findings, the same could be true of the school buildings.

In a new research letter published in JAMA Network Open, researchers found some students may be exposed to nearly twice the annual dose of natural background radiation, estimated by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission at 3.1 mSv (310 mrem).

An odorless and invisible gas, radon is the leading cause of lung cancer among nonsmokers and the second overall cause of lung cancer nationwide. Its greatest danger lies in prolonged exposure, a risk amplified in school settings where children and teachers spend extensive hours. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates more than 70,000 classrooms have high short-term radon levels.

“This study highlights the urgent need for radon testing in schools,” said Beth Tarini, M.D., M.S., M.B.A., co-director of the Center for Translational Research at Children’s National and the manuscript’s senior author. “Unchecked exposure to radon in these settings could have significant short- and long-term health effects, particularly for children.”

The EPA has found that approximately 20% of schools nationwide have done some testing, and only . In the Washington, D.C., region, Dr. Tarini says testing is often done:

The District of Columbia requires public schools to test for radon and publicize the results. If the results are above the federal limit of >4pCi/L, the schools are required to mitigate the risk.
Maryland doesn’t require schools to test for radon, but some schools test. The state’s largest school district — Montgomery County Public Schools — has been testing for radon since the late 1980s and retests facilities every five years.
In Virginia, the commonwealth requires public schools to test for radon, make the results public and report the results to the state.

Brian Yang, the study’s first author, called for action in Pennsylvania and regions with known radon risks.

“This research underscores the need to test radon levels in schools and, if necessary, mitigate,” said Yang, a senior at Moravian Academy in Bethlehem, Pa. “Addressing this invisible and under-recognized threat should be a public health priority.”

For more details, read the full study — “Estimated Radon Exposure in Eastern Pennsylvania Schools” — in JAMA Network Open.

Attendees at the 2nd annual Cell & Gene Therapy Symposium

Regional powerhouse: Cell and Gene therapy leaders from mid-Atlantic forge connections

November 26, 2024

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Nearly 200 biomedical leaders from Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia gathered at the Children’s National Research & Innovation Campus for the 2nd annual Cell & Gene Therapy Symposium. The event showcased groundbreaking developments in rare disease treatments and underscored the importance of regional collaboration.

“By targeting diseases at the cellular level, we are on the cusp of breakthroughs in cell and gene therapy that will transform medicine,” said Catherine Bollard, M.D., M.B.Ch.B., director of the Center for Cancer and Immunology Research (CCIR) at Children’s National Hospital and a host of the symposium. “Progress will accelerate if we build partnerships beyond our own organizations.”

The big picture

Scientists and clinicians have worked for more than two decades to develop cell and gene therapies aimed at treating diseases on a cellular level. The past few years have been particularly promising as investment in science has led to advancements. Children’s National is at the forefront, as one of the first pediatric hospitals in the world to offer commercial gene therapies for sickle cell disease.

Many more treatments for rare diseases are in development at Children’s National and beyond. Leaders at CCIR are actively building collaborations with companies, academic institutions and enterprises across the mid-Atlantic region to accelerate these efforts.

During the symposium, Eugene Hwang, M.D., chief of Oncology at Children’s National, addressed the urgent need for more effective and less toxic treatments for pediatric brain tumors. He highlighted the potential of combining immunotherapies with innovations like low-intensity focused ultrasound, which can open the blood-brain barrier temporarily to improve drug delivery to tumors.

“With collaboration between the lab and clinic, alongside industry partners and even between hospitals, we can finally make strides I haven’t seen in my entire career,” Dr. Hwang said. “It’s an incredibly inspiring time for all of us.”

Why it matters

Experts from organizations as diverse as MaxCyte, ScaleReady, RoosterBio, PSC Biotech, Qiagen, FujiFilm and the Frederick County Office of Economic Development came together for the daylong conversation.

Michael Friedlander, Ph.D., executive director of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech, emphasized the critical role of regional partnerships in fulfilling the potential of these emerging therapies. He pointed to the collaborative research between Children’s National and Virginia Tech on brain tumors, where bioengineers and cancer researchers are working side-by-side to create new treatments.

“We are now able to begin delivering these leading-edge therapies to patients,” Dr. Friedlander said. “For example, those who live in rural settings often have much less access to such frontline medical innovations. By collaborating with Children’s National and gaining access to urban pediatric populations, as well as patients in our more rural area, we can start to bring these therapies to a much broader audience.”

What’s next

Patrick Hanley, Ph.D., chief and director of the Cellular Therapy Program at Children’s National, observed that other regions in the U.S. are uniting to advance scientific discoveries with the backing of government, academia and industry. He hopes to see similar collaboration across the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area, known as the DMV. Children’s National is leading an initiative called CHARM – the Capital Health and Mid-Atlantic Regenerative Medicine – to bring regional experts together for webinars, networking events and partnership opportunities.

“There’s significant interest in cell and gene therapy worldwide,” said Dr. Hanley, a symposium host. “I see an even greater interest in creating cell and gene therapy hubs. The time is right for our mid-Atlantic region, and I’m excited to see what unfolds in the next five years.”

Extracting actionable research data faster, with fewer hassles

October 4, 2019

Mihailo Kaplarevic, Ph.D., the newly minted Chief Research Information Officer at Children’s National Hospital and Bioinformatics Division Chief at Children’s National Research Institute, will provide computational support, advice, informational guidance, expertise in big data and data analyses for researchers and clinicians.

Kaplarevic’s new job is much like the role he played most recently at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), assembling a team of researchers and scientists skilled in computing and statistical analyses to assist as in-house experts for other researchers and scientists.

NHLBI was the first institute within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) family to set up a scientific information office. During his tenure, a half-dozen other NIH institutions followed, setting up the same entity to help bridge the enormous gap between basic and clinical science and everything related to IT.

“There is a difference compared with traditional IT support at Children’s National – which will remain in place and still do the same sort of things they have been doing so far,” he says of The Bear Institute for Health Innovation. “The difference is this office has experience in research because every single one of us was a researcher at a certain point in our career: We are published. We applied for grants. We lived the life of a typical scientist. On top of that, we’re coming from the computational world. That helps us bridge the gaps between research and clinical worlds and IT.”

Ultimately, he aims to foster groundbreaking science by recognizing the potential to enhance research projects by bringing expertise acquired over his career and powerful computing tools to help teams achieve their goals in a less expensive and more efficient way.

“I have lived the life of a typical scientist. I know exactly how painful and frustrating it can be to want to do something quickly and efficiently but be slowed by technological barriers,” he adds.

As just one example, his office will design the high-performance computing cluster for the hospital to help teams extract more useful clinical and research data with fewer headaches.

Right now, the hospital has three independent clinical systems storing patient data; all serve a different purpose. (And there are also a couple of research information systems, also used for different purposes.) Since databases are his expertise, he will be involved in consolidating data resources, finding the best way to infuse the project with the bigger-picture mission – especially for translational science – and creating meaningful, actionable reports.

“It’s not only about running fewer queries,” he explains. “One needs to know how to design the right question. One needs to know how to design that question in a way that the systems could understand. And, once you get the data back, it’s a big set of things that you need to further filter and carefully shape. Only then will you get the essence that has clinical or scientific value. It’s a long process.”

As he was introduced during a Children’s National Research Institute faculty meeting in late-September 2019, Kaplarevic joked that his move away from pure computer science into a health care and clinical research domain was triggered by his parents: “When my mom would introduce me, she would say ‘My son is a doctor, but not the kind of doctor who helps other people.’ ”

Some of that know-how will play out by applying tools and methodology to analyze big data to pluck out the wheat (useful data) from the chaff in an efficient and useful way. On projects that involve leveraging cloud computing for storing massive amounts of data, it could entail analyzing the data wisely to reduce its size when it comes back from the cloud – when the real storage costs come in. “You can save a lot of money by being smart about how you analyze data,” he says.

While he expects his first few months will be spent getting the lay of the land, understanding research project portfolios, key principal investigators and the pediatric hospital’s biggest users in the computational domain, he has ambitious longer-term goals.

“Three years from now, I would like this institution to say that the researchers are feeling confident that their research is not affected by limitations related to computer science in general. I would like this place to become a very attractive environment for up-and-coming researchers as well as for established researchers because we are offering cutting-edge technological efficiencies; we are following the trends; we are a secure place; and we foster science in the best possible way by making computational services accessible, affordable and reliable.”

Genetic testing reigns triumphant at health app hackathon

April 23, 2018

The growing popularity of genetic testing has one large hurdle: There are fewer than 4,000 genetic counselors in the United States, and people who use commercial genetic testing kits may receive confusing or inaccurate information.

To combat this problem, a team of doctors from the Rare Disease Institute at Children’s National Health System created the framework for a smartphone application that would house educational videos and tools that provide reputable information about genetic disorders and genetic testing.

On April 13, 2018, Debra Regier, M.D., Natasha Shur, M.D., and their teammates presented the app “Bear Genes” at the 2nd Annual Medical & Health App Development Workshop, a competition sponsored by the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at Children’s National (CTSI-CN) and the Milken Institute School of Public Health (Milken Institute SPH) at the George Washington University. Bear Genes won first place, and the team received $10,000 to develop a working prototype of the app.

The Bear Genes team was one of 10 who presented their ideas for smartphone apps to a panel of judges at the competition. Ideas covered a variety of topics, including emergency room visits and seizures related to menstrual cycles. Sean Cleary, Ph.D., M.P.H., an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the Milken Institute SPH, and his teammates proposed an app called “MyCommunicationPal” that would assist autistic individuals in reporting their symptoms to healthcare providers.

Sean Cleary and Kevin Cleary, Ph.D., technical director of the Bioengineering Initiative at Children’s National Health System, created the hackathon to bring together professionals from various fields to create technology-based solutions for public health and medical challenges. Interested participants submit applications and app proposals in the fall, and 10 ideas are selected to be fleshed out at the half-day hackathon. Participants join teams to develop the selected ideas, and on the day of the event, create a five-minute presentation to compete for the top prize. About 90 people attended this year’s hackathon.

“The workshop provides us with the opportunity to collaborate with healthcare providers, public health professionals and community members to develop an appropriate user-friendly app for those in need,” said Sean Cleary. “The event also fosters future collaborations between important stakeholders.”

This article originally appeared in the Milken Institute SPH pressroom.