Unraveling the Enigma of Immune Disease and Allergic Disorders

Close-Up Of Doctor Performing Immunology Therapy On Hand Of Boy.

Department of Pediatrics Annual Report – 2024

Allergy, Immunology, and Rheumatology

2024 Pediatrics Annual Report banner

The Division of Allergy, Immunology, and Rheumatology includes some of the best-known names in pediatric allergy, immune-related, or autoimmune-related diseases. These leaders in the field have created new laboratories and research programs while providing expert diagnoses and care to children and families, many of whom have long sought identification of a chronic illness. 

NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital now serves as a referral center for other children’s hospitals and has the expertise and resources to diagnose and care for the most complex patients. Our physicians share their knowledge as chairs of numerous national committees, create and participate in patient registries, author innumerable publications, and participate on editorial and scientific advisory boards. 

  • The division welcomed Professor Dusan Bogunovic, PhD, an internationally recognized leader in genetic diseases of the immune system. He will also serve as Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Pediatrics.
  • Clinical Immunologists in the Division participated in a first-of-its-kind diagnosis and bone marrow transplant of a child with a genetic disease of the immune system found via the GUARDIAN program, which adds whole genome sequencing to the standard newborn screen. 
  • Clinicians and scientists within the division made multiple discoveries of new genetic disorders of the immune system in patients followed at CUIMC- with direct implications for patient care and our understanding of immunobiology.
  • Dusan Bogunovic, PhD, established monthly meetings for the Academic Advance in Research Committee (ARC) to create a supportive and progressive research environment in pediatrics with a focus on early career faculty.  Meetings are structured as a workshop where PED’s Assistant/Associate professors, along with more senior faculty, discuss specific aims of grants that ARC members are putting together in order to advise, improve, and network. 
  • Dusan Bogunovic, PhD, established the Immunogenetics Interest Group (IIG) Seminar Series - monthly meetings organized by the Center for Inborn Genetic Errors of Immunity and the Pediatric Department of Allergy, Immunology, and Rheumatology. These meetings provide a collaborative platform where participating labs present ongoing research, share updates on their work, and engage in discussions to foster mutual learning and collaboration. 
  • We established a dedicated multidisciplinary asthma clinic with specialists from Allergy and Pulmonology to provide collaborative, consultative services to patients with severe or complex asthma and concomitant allergic disease.  
  • Manar Abdalgani, MBBS, established a joint IBD/immunology multidisciplinary clinic with GI that combines immunology and GI services on the same day. The goal of this is to facilitate communication between team members and streamline the diagnostic and therapeutic discussion, thus enhancing the patient experience and outcomes. 
  • Manar Abdalgani, MBBS, began a solid organ transplant service, working with the liver and cardiac transplant teams to address immune-related concerns in these patients. This service focuses on the evaluation and treatment of patients with primary or secondary immunodeficiency as well as patients with immune dysregulation while on immunosuppressive treatment.

New Appointments 

  • Dusan Bogunovic, PhD
    • Professor of Pediatrics, Vice-Chair for Basic Science Research, and Director of the Center for Genetic Errors of Immunity in the Department of Pediatrics 
  • Ashley Lee, MD
    • Instructor of Pediatrics 
  • Justin Taft, PhD
    • Assistant Professor of Pediatric Immunology  

Honors and Awards 

  • Jordan Orange, MD, PhD
    • Awarded a MERIT (Method To Extend Research in Time) Award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. This prestigious (R37) grant is designed to provide stable, long-term funding support to experienced investigators with stellar records of research accomplishment. 
  • Mervat Nassef, MD
    • 7/2024 World Allergy Training School (under WAO) - gave two presentations on food allergy and led a workshop on the use of asthma devices in Kenya 
    • Elected member of the ACAAI Board of Regents 
    • 2024 Castle Connolly Exceptional Women in Medicine and Top Doctors 
    • 2024 New York Times Magazine Super Doctors 
  • Emily Mace, PhD 
    • Received a Whitman Fellowship award to spend the summer at the Marine Biological Laboratory 
    • Appointed Associate Co-Director for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center 
    • Invited speaker at the NK-ILC Symposium in France 
  • Ramsay Fuleihan, MD
    • Elected as Vice-Chair for the Immune Deficiency Foundation Medical Advisory Committee 
  • Manar Abdalgani, MBBS 
    • Appointed Director of Solid Organ Transplant Immunology at NYP- MSCHONY 
    • Invited speaker at the annual European Society for Immunodeficiencies (ESID) conference in France 
    • Invited speaker at the NY ROYAL Immunology Conference
    • Invited Grand Rounds Speaker at Rutgers University, Richmond University, University of Jordan, and NUST University (Pakistan) 

Major Grants 

  • Jordan Orange, MD, PhD
    • NIH award: Directing Function at the Natural Killer Cell Secretory Immunological Synapse (5R37AI067946-16) 
    • NIH award: Genetic, Immunologic and Mechanistic Basis of Human NK Cell Deficiency (5R01AI120989-10) 
  • Joshua Milner, MD, PhD
    • Co-PI, NIAMS award: Establishing the contributions of monogenic etiologies to hidradenitis suppurativa pathogenesis 
    • Pharming Healthcare: High thoroughput saturation mutagenesis and flow cytometric-based screen for annotation of PIK3CD and PIK3RI 
    • Pharming Healthcare: Functional Flow cytometric-based assay for diagnosis of activated P13K-related diseases 
    • Co-PI, NIAID Award: Mechanistic Elucidation of Pathogenic CBM Complex Mutations Associated With Atopic Disease 
  • Joshua Milner, MD, PhD, and Dusan Bogunovic, PhD
    • MPI, NIH award: New York Regional Inborn Errors of Immunity Resource Initiative League (NY-ROYAL) (R24AI167802) 
  • Dusan Bogunovic, PhD
    • PI, NIH award:  Inborn Errors of Immunity Leading to Autoinflammatory Syndromes (R01AI148963) 
    • MPI, NIH award: Next Generation Resolution of Antiviral Gene Networks (R01AI151029) 
    • PI, NIH award: Human ISG15 and USP18 Deficiencies Underlying Type I Interferonopathies (R01AI127372) 
    • PI, NIH award: Immunologic and Predictive Features of MIS-C (R01HD108467) 
    • Co-PI, NIH award: Comprehensive genomic and inflammatory profiling of vaccine-associated myocarditis (R21AI174216) 
    • Co-PI, NIH award: Microglial Contribution to Down Syndrome Neuropathology (R01NS126452) 
    • Co-PI, NIH award: HERV proteogenomics of narcotic-driven HIV latency (R61DA058294) 
    • Co-PI, NIH award: Mount Sinai Center for Undiagnosed Diseases (1U01NS139213-01) 
    • MPI, NIH award: Use of specific JAK inhibition on inflammatory skin and scalp diseases in Down syndrome (1R61AR084210-01) 
  • Emily Mace, PhD
    • PI, NIH award: Lineage tracing origins of human innate lymphoid cells from hematopoietic precursors (R03AI187610) 

Selected Publications

  • Stewart O, Gruber C, Randolph HE, Patel R, Ramba M, Calzoni E, Huang LH, Levy J, Buta S, Lee A, Sazeides C, Prue Z, Hoytema van Konijnenburg DP, Chinn IK, Pedroza LA, Lupski JR, Schmitt EG, Cooper MA, Puel A, Peng X, Boisson-Dupuis S, Bustamante J, Okada S, Martin-Fernandez M, Orange JS, Casanova JL, Milner JD, Bogunovic D. Monoallelic expression can govern penetrance of inborn errors of immunity. Nature. 2025 Jan 1. doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-08346-4. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 39743591. 
  • Guilz NC, Ahn YO, Fatima H, Pedroza LA, Seo S, Soni RK, Wang N, Egli D, Mace EM. Replication Stress in Activated Human NK Cells Induces Sensitivity to Apoptosis. J Immunol. 2024 Jul 1;213(1):40-51.  
  • Martinez AL, Shannon MJ, Sloan T, Mace EM. CD56/NCAM mediates cell migration of human NK cells by promoting integrin-mediated adhesion turnover. Mol Biol Cell. 2024 May 1;35(5):ar64.  
  • Horesh ME, Martin-Fernandez M, Gruber C, Buta S, Le Voyer T, Puzenat E, Lesmana H, Wu Y, Richardson A, Stein D, Hodeib S, Youssef M, Kurowski JA, Feuille E, Pedroza LA, Fuleihan RL, Haseley A, Hovnanian A, Quartier P, Rosain J, Davis G, Mullan D, Stewart O, Patel R, Lee AE, Rubinstein R, Ewald L, Maheshwari N, Rahming V, Chinn IK, Lupski JR, Orange JS, Sancho-Shimizu V, Casanova JL, Abul-Husn NS, Itan Y, Milner JD, Bustamante J, Bogunovic D. Individuals with JAK1 variants are affected by syndromic features encompassing autoimmunity, atopy, colitis, and dermatitis. J Exp Med. 2024 Jun 3;221(6):e20232387. doi: 10.1084/jem.20232387. Epub 2024 Apr 2.  
  • Reed AE, Peraza J, van den Haak F, Hernandez ER, Gibbs RA, Chinn IK, Lupski JR, Marchi E, Reshef R, Alobeid B, Mace EM, Orange JS. β-Actin G342D as a Cause of NK Cell Deficiency Impairing Lytic Synapse Termination. J Immunol. 2024 Mar 15;212(6):962-973. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.2300671. PMID: 38315012; PMCID: PMC11337350. 
  • Chester JG, Carcamo B, Gudis DA, Bustamante D, Eisig SB, Ombrello MJ, Chung WK, Milner JD. PLCG2 variants in cherubism. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2024. Epub 20240827. doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2024.08.016. PubMed PMID: 39197752. 
  • Chester JG, Estrella AM, Kuhns DB, Garcia CK, Fuleihan RL. Expanding the Clinical Phenotype of Autosomal Recessive Chronic Granulomatous Disease. J Clin Immunol. 2024 Aug 15;44(8):177. doi: 10.1007/s10875-024-01782-x. PMID: 39143252. 
  • Rosain J, Le Voyer T, Liu X… Fuleihan RL, Lévy R, Roelens M, Gao L, Materna M, Pellegrini S, Piemonti L, Catherinot E, Goffard JC, Fekkar A, Sacko-Sow A, Soudée C, Boucherit S, Neehus AL, Has C, Hübner S, Blanchard-Rohner G, Amador-Borrero B, Utsumi T, Taniguchi M, Tani H, Izawa K, Yasumi T, Kanai S, Migaud M, Aubart M, Lambert N, Gorochov G, Picard C, Soudais C, L'Honneur AS, Rozenberg F, Milner JD, Zhang SY, Vabres P, Trpinac D, Marr N, Boddaert N, Desguerre I, Pasparakis M, Miller CN, Poziomczyk CS, Abel L, Okada S, Jouanguy E, Cheynier R, Zhang Q, Cobat A, Béziat V, Boisson B, Steffann J, Fusco F, Ursini MV, Hadj-Rabia S, Bodemer C, Bustamante J, Luche H, Puel A, Courtois G, Bastard P, Landegren N, Anderson MS, Casanova JL.. Incontinentia pigmenti underlies thymic dysplasia, autoantibodies to type I IFNs, and viral diseases. J Exp Med. 2024;221(11). Epub 20241001. doi: 10.1084/jem.20231152. PubMed PMID: 39352576; PMCID: PMC11448874. 
  • Ziegler A, Koval-Burt C, Kay DM, Suchy SF, …Milner JD, McWalter K, Monaghan KG, Orange JS, Pimentel Soler N, Quevedo Y, Ratner S, Retterer K, Shah A, Shapiro N, Sicko RJ, Silver ES, Strom S, Torene RI, Williams O, Ustach VD, Wynn J, Taft RJ, Kruszka P, Caggana M, Chung WK. Expanded Newborn Screening Using Genome Sequencing for Early Actionable Conditions. JAMA. 2024. Epub 20241024. doi: 10.1001/jama.2024.19662. PubMed PMID: 39446378; PMCID: PMC11503470. 
  • Abdalgani M, James AE, Khoury P, Freeman AF, Milner JD. TH2-driven manifestations of inborn errors of immunity. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2024 Aug;154(2):245-254. doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2024.05.007. Epub 2024 May 17. PMID: 38761995 

Highlights