Columbia Children's Health Inaugural Innovation and Learning Day
On Monday, January 29th the Department of Pediatrics hosted its inaugural Columbia Children's Health Innovation and Learning Day, which showcased the depth and breadth of research being conducted by our department’s own physician-scientists, and by colleagues in other Columbia departments and schools, to improve the care of children.
CUIMC Dean Katrina Armstrong, MD opened the day with welcome remarks, followed by department chair Jordan Orange, MD, PhD’s keynote lecture on “NK cells and a Journey Toward Harnessing Immune Function.” Dr. Orange is an internationally known expert in natural killer (NK) cells, and he spoke about his own and others’ work that is advancing the understanding and treatment of NK diseases.
Scientific sessions continued through the morning, with research presentations on a wide range of topics including:
- Fetoscopic Surgery: A New Paradigm for Early Innovative Interventions, Vincent Duron MD
- Neuroplacentology: Maternal-Fetal-Placental Integration, Anna Penn MD, PhD
- Lung Progenitors at the Crossroad of Development and Disease, Wellington Cardoso MD, PhD
- Innovative Approaches to Cardiac Valve Replacement: From Regeneration to Domino Transplantation, David Kalfa MD, PhD, & Marc Richmond MD
- Multiorgan Transplantation: New Hope for Children with Multiorgan Failure, Peter Liou MD
- Redox medicine in Traumatic Brain Injury – On the Road to Discovery and Repair, Hülya Bayir MD, PhD
- NY ROYAL OMICs and Personalized Medicine – Innovative Advances for Children with Rare Diseases, Joshua Milner MD
- New Frontiers in Community Health Using Digital Technology, Stephanie Lovinsky-Desir MD, and Melissa Stockwell MD MPH
You can watch several of these presentions here.
During midday breakout workshops, participants were able to attend either a virtual tour of “CTSA Resources for All Stages of Research” (led by Natalie Neu MD, Muredach Reilly MD PhD, and Daichi Shimbo MD); an overview of “Big Data Science, Machine Learning and AI - Map of the Future,” (Noémie Elhadad PhD); or a meeting of the Columbia Children’s Health Research Advisory Board (CCHRAB, Dodi Meyer, MD), which provides community feedback to CUIMC project proposals that have a pediatric focus.
More than 100 researchers and teams submitted abstracts for consideration for presentation and discussion at the Innovation Day poster session. These were displayed in the NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital Wintergarden. (Abstracts included oral presentations, e-posters, and poster presentations.)
During the “Live Shark Tank Session,” led by the Columbia Tech Venture Team, three research teams pitched their projects for feedback on how to grow and fund their work.
The day concluded with the departmental presentation of our 2024 Innovation Nucleation Fund awards, led off by speaker, Jennifer Woo Baidal, MD, MPH, whose project “Food FARMacia: Mobile Food Pantry to Reduce Household Food Insecurity in Pediatric Primary Care,” was launched initially with funding from the first year of INF grants in 2020. Learn more about this year's recipients below.
2024 Innovation Nucleation Fund Awards
- Clinical Program ($15,000) Amara Majeed MD: Development of a Multidisciplinary Outpatient Cardiac Neurodevelopmental Program for patients with Single Ventricle Heart Disease
- Clinical/Educational Program ($15,000) Faith Kim MD: Parental perception surrounding early cerebral palsy diagnosis and high-risk designation in neonates
- Education/Advocacy Program ($15,000) Patrisha Woolard MD, PhD: Fostering Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Learning Environment: Mapping Pediatrics Health Equity EPAs to Milestone Competency
- Clinical/Translational Research ($50,000) Teresa Lee MD: Strategies for the Recruitment and Retention of Racially and Ethnically Diverse Populations into Precision Medicine Research
- Basic/Translational Research ($50,000) Amelie Collins MD: Determining the mechanism of maternal IL-10 restriction of fetal emergency myelopoiesis to improve neonatal outcomes
- Faculty Award ($15,000) Emily Mace PhD: Human natural killer cell development in the MDS/AML bone marrow niche
Department chair Jordan Orange, MD, PhD, says, "Our inaugural Columbia Children’s Health Innovation and Learning Day was nothing short of inspiring. It’s breadth and spectrum were phenomenal, and so many department members contributed and made this day really special, which speaks to our collective identity and pioneering spirit. Together we are writing a vibrant next chapter for our department, and this event was a demonstration of how great that will be."
Innovation Day organizer Erika Berman Rosenzweig, MD added, "What started as an ambitious idea, morphed into a day that highlighted some of our most promising innovations in medicine, science and discovery aimed at improving the lives of children."