Children's National Health System

IN THE NEWS 3 People IN THE NEWS ROGER J. PACKER, MD, Senior Vice President of the Center for Neurosciences and Behavioral Medicine and the Gilbert Distinguished Professor of Neurofibromatosis at Children's National Health System, was named a key advisor to a National Brain Tumor Society program that seeks to carry out research and drug development to overcome barriers to better treatments for children with pediatric brain cancer. Dr. Packer also was named the 2014 Medical Honoree at the Children's Brain Tumor Foundation Annual Meeting in New York City in May. The Children's Brain Tumor Foundation works to improve the treatment, quality of life, and long-term outlook for children with brain and spinal cord tumors. The International Society of Cellular Therapy (ISCT) named CATHERINE M. BOLLARD, MBChB, MD, FRACP, FRCPA, incoming President-Elect. Dr. Bollard is the Director of the Program for Cell Enhancement and Technologies for Immunotherapy and Co-director of the Immunology Initiative of the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Children's National. The ISCT is a professional society of clinicians, regulators, technologists, and industry partners whose mission is to develop safe and effective cellular therapies that can be used in patients worldwide. NAOMI L.C. LUBAN, MD, Medical Director of the Office of Protection of Human Subjects and Director of the Edward J. Miller Blood Donor Center at Children's National, was named recipient of the prestigious American Red Cross Graham A. Jamieson Memorial Lectureship in April. She is the first woman honored in the 16 years of the award's history, which recognizes substantial contributions through research to the Transfusion Medicine and Blood Banking fields. MARSHALL L. SUMMAR, MD, Division Chief, Genetics and Metabolism, Center for Genetic Medicine Research at Children's National, has been appointed to the Patient-Centered Outcome Research Institute (PCORI)'s inaugural Advisory Panel on Rare Disease. The new 13-member Advisory Panel on Rare Diseases will advise PCORI, a government research and funding institution, on its funding priorities in the area of rare disease, and also engage with the rare disease research community. | | | N E W S N O T E S | CHILDREN'S NATIONAL IN PARTNERSHIP TO DISTRIBUTE HEARING AIDS FOR KIDS Children's National Health System is included in a network of hospitals distributing hearing aids through a partnership with the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation (PBTF) for patients with brain tumors and other forms of childhood cancer. The PBTF programs include free educational resources and special events for brain tumor survivors and their families. CHILDREN'S NATIONAL EPILEPSY PROGRAM RECOGNIZED BY THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF EPILEPSY CENTERS The Comprehensive Pediatric Epilepsy Program at Children's National has been named a Level 4 epilepsy center by the National Association of Epilepsy Centers. Level 4 epilepsy centers are reserved for those programs that are fully comprehensive in the services that they provide. CHILDREN'S NATIONAL STUDIES MAY LEAD TO IMPROVED DIAGNOSIS OF APPENDICITIS Steven L. Zeichner, MD, PhD, of the Center for Cancer and Immunology Research at Children's Research Institute, and other researchers from Children's National and the Institute for Genome Sciences at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, have identified potential links between microbes found in the appendix of patients with appendicitis and those found in the rectum of appendicitis patients. The findings may help guide treatment and lead to the development of new, faster, less expensive, and safer tests to diagnose appendicitis. CHILDREN'S NATIONAL RESEARCHERS RECEIVE NIH GRANT FOR PEDIATRIC ACUTE MYELOGENOUS LEUKEMIA TREATMENT INNOVATIONS A $1.92 million grant from the National Institutes of Health was awarded to a research team that focuses on new approaches for treatment of relapsed pediatric acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), led by Yang Liu, PhD, Bosworth Chair and Director of the Center for Cancer and Immunology Research (CCIR) at Children's Research Institute, and Reuven Schore, MD, member of CCIR and attending physician in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Program of the Division of Oncology in the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders. The team is examining novel approaches to address unmet medical needs of AML patients, among whom inducing remission is particularly difficult, and the risk of relapse is high.

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