Discovery and Innovation Are in Our Department's DNA
Research 2024
With more NIH funding than almost any other medical school-based department of pediatrics in the Northeast, Columbia’s physician-scientists work to address the greatest health threats facing children in the 21st century: obesity, cancer, infectious diseases, diabetes, genetic diseases, heart disease, asthma, and the impacts of prematurity. Our faculty employ cutting-edge research tools such as molecular diagnostics and personalized medicine, and foster wide-ranging and fertile collaborations throughout the university, as well as nationally and internationally. Our goal is to rapidly apply our discoveries to patient care, and to directly benefit the diverse patient community in our region and children around the nation and globe.
Over the past year investigators in the Department of Pediatrics continued our long-standing commitment to innovation through new and ongoing research initiatives.
2024 Research Highlights
Columbia Launches Garrett Isaac Neubauer Center for Cardiovascular Innovation
Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S) launched a new center for pediatric cardiovascular innovation, made possible through a gift by Lawrence Neubauer. The mission of the new center is to improve outcomes for patients through groundbreaking research and care and to define the next cures for and future practice in congenital heart disease (CHD)—here and across the world.
Why Do Some Newborns Develop Severe Infections?
Compared to adults, newborns are highly susceptible to infections that can cause serious health complications and even death. One factor known to affect a newborn’s response to infection is a condition called neonatal neutropenia, in which the infant fails to make enough neutrophils, the immune system’s first responders, and little is known about what underlies this immune deficiency. A new study by Columbia researchers including neonatologist Amelie Collins, MD, PhD, suggests that many cases of neonatal neutropenia may originate from suppression of the fetus’s blood-forming stem cells, a natural maternal mechanism that protects the placenta from inflammation but may leave newborns vulnerable to infection if not turned off after birth.
New Center Studies How Genes Shape Your Immune System
Immunologist Dusan Bogunovic, PhD joined the Department of Pediatrics earlier this year and will soon launch the Columbia Center for Genetic Errors of Immunity. Dr. Bogunovic imagines a future where “patients learn they have a gene variation making them more likely to develop an autoimmune disease or get sick from a virus, and we have some preventive therapies that address that risk.”
A New Viral Target Could Help Combat the Global Measles Resurgence
A multinational team led by researchers at Columbia and the La Jolla Institute for Immunology has identified a novel viral target that could help combat the global resurgence of measles. In their research, published in the journal Science, they showed that a vaccine targeting a subunit of the virus—the fusion protein—generated antibodies that successfully prevented the virus from completing its merger with the cell membrane. Because subunit vaccines do not contain the whole virus, they are safer for people with weakened immune systems. Pediatrics researcher Matteo Porotto, PhD, a senior author of the study, said, "With a growing number of immunocompromised people who cannot be vaccinated with a live virus, measles has more opportunities to spread.”
The Gut’s Stem Cells Get a New Identity
Understanding what drives gut stem cells to work nonstop may reveal how idle stem cells elsewhere can be revved up to repair hearts, lungs, and brains. But are scientists studying the right cells? Pediatric gastroenterologist Jonathan Miller, MD and Columbia colleagues published their research in the June 6 issue of the journal Cell.
Dr. Dieter Egli Expands Study of Embryonic Development Through New Research Partnership
Through a new collaboration, stem cell researcher Dieter Egli, PhD, and cancer researcher Juan Manuel Schvartzman, MD, PhD, are investigating the stressors that embryos experience during the very early period of replication and how they respond to those stressors. Their research may have implications for health challenges ranging from in vitro fertilization to cancer, since cancer cells resemble early embryonic cells, they note. “We really don’t know very much about how this window of genomic instability in early development affects our health as adults, and that’s very important to understand. It could very well help us understand health and disease in many different areas,” says Dr. Egli. The collaborators recently received a substantial grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation for this work.
Changing the Child-Welfare Paradigm
In “Abolitionist Child Protection” in The Lancet, Columbia child abuse pediatrician Jocelyn Brown, MD, and colleague Sayantani DasGupta, MD, reflect on our current child welfare system, and on how to create a more just system in which all families and children feel equally safe and protected. Such a child safety framework “would eventually mean limited child protection services. It would mean investing in all communities with parenting support, accessible and safe child care, employment opportunities, safe housing, enriching childhood education, non-punitive mental health interventions, green spaces, affordable fresh food produce, and more."
Columbia School of Professional Studies
In Pioneering Study, Gene Technology Outperforms Standard Newborn Screening Tests
Early results from a study of newborn screening methods show that DNA analysis picks up many more preventable or treatable serious health conditions than standard newborn screening and is favored by most parents offered the option. The study—called GUARDIAN—is one of the first large-scale studies in the world to use genome sequencing as a method for newborn screening and is the first to publish preliminary results (read the study in JAMA). “The results show us that genome sequencing can radically improve children’s medical care,” says Joshua Milner, MD, chief of pediatric allergy, immunology, and rheumatology services at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center and one of the study’s co-authors.
NIH Nationwide Study Continues to Recruit Children and Adults With Long COVID Symptoms
The Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery, or RECOVER, study is enrolling. Children and young adults, from newborns to 25 years, who have prolonged symptoms after a COVID infection can join this NIH-funded initiative to help us understand the long-term effects of COVID-19. Columbia is one of many study sites across the country participating in the RECOVER study. We are enrolling children and young adults who have had prolonged symptoms of any kind after having COVID, even if they have not yet been diagnosed as having Long COVID.
Families and providers can email, call, or visit the link below to enroll:
Email: peds_recoverstudy@cumc.columbia.edu
Call 646-877-5894
Learn More About the RECOVER Study
Infectious Disease Researchers Publish Study of Pathogen Adaptation During Chronic Infection
Columbia pediatric ID researchers recently published the results of a study designed to determine why some pathogens, particularly Staphyolococus aureus, are so successful at infecting lung tissue. Their findings suggest that these organisms readily alter gene expression, especially their metabolic activity, once in the host. They analyzed S. aureus gene expression within the infected lung, providing a snapshot of which genes must be expressed for an infection to succeed. Read more: "Staphylococcus aureus adapts to exploit collagen-derived proline during chronic infection," in Nature Microbiology, 12 August 2024.