When Texas Children’s Hospital opened in 1954, we had 128 employees, 106 beds in a three-story building, and we saw 2,300 patients our first year. See how far we’ve come in just 62 years!
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Dr. Huda Zoghbi, director of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s, will receive this year’s prestigious Jessie Stevenson Kovalenko Medal for her pioneering advancements in neuroscience research.
The National Academy of Science (NAS) presents this award every two years for outstanding research in the medical sciences. The Kovalenko Fund was gifted by Michael S. Kovalenko in 1949 in memory of his wife, Jessie Stevenson Kovalenko. For the last 63 years, the NAS has chosen distinguished scientists who have made landmark discoveries in medical research to receive this medal.
“Zoghbi unraveled the molecular basis of Spinocerebellar ataxia and Rett syndrome, providing novel insight into the pathogenesis of a broad range of neurologic disorders,” NAS Home Secretary Susan R. Wessler said. “Over the years, she has received numerous awards and prizes that honor her leadership in neuroscience research and exemplary mentorship to young neuroscientists. We couldn’t be more excited about this latest award. Her research initiatives have provided much needed rays of hope for many patients and their families.”
Zoghbi, who is a professor of molecular and human genetics, pediatrics, neurology and neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine, has made several seminal discoveries in diverse areas of neuroscience. Her work has significantly furthered our understanding of neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders and revealed novel strategies to reverse these conditions. In addition, her forays in basic developmental neurobiology have led to important insights in a broad range of conditions from hearing loss to colon cancer.
Among her many scientific accomplishments, Zoghbi is widely recognized for her pioneering work on Rett syndrome, a form of autism common among girls. In 1999, she and her colleagues discovered that Rett syndrome is caused by loss-of-function mutations in the X-linked gene MeCP2 (methyl-CpG-binding protein 2) which established it as the first autism spectrum disorder that is largely caused by sporadic gene mutations. She would go on to demonstrate that the brain is exquisitely sensitive to levels of what she terms the “goldilocks” protein, MeCP2, and that doubling MeCP2 levels causes another devastating neurological syndrome among boys.
Recently, her lab showed that using small antisense oligonucleotides to normalize MeCP2 levels in the brain reversed the debilitating symptoms of MeCP2 duplication syndrome in a mouse models of that disease.
Zoghbi will receive the Jessie Stevenson Kovalenko Medal on Sunday, May 1, at the National Academy of Science’s 153rd Annual Meeting.
Bioengineers at Texas Children’s Hospital and Rice University have won a National Institutes of Health grant to develop a new generation of patches to repair the damaged hearts of infants.
The $1.9 million, 5-year grant will allow Jeffrey Jacot and his team to take the next steps in a long-running drive to improve the survival rates of such infants, many of whom are diagnosed in utero and require surgery soon after birth.
Jacot, who has appointments at Rice and Texas Children’s, and his colleagues will test patches that encourage a child’s own heart cells to invade and, over time, regenerate tissue to repair birth defects.
The multilayer patches include a rudimentary preformed vasculature – a blood-vessel system – that encourages cells to migrate. Over time, as the cells form organ tissue, the patches degrade and leave the body. The new tissue will ideally grow with the heart and have no fibrous scar that could interfere with its normal operation.
“Our goal is to have something that blends in with the tissue, so you can’t tell it’s a patch,” Jacot said. “It grows with the rest of the heart, and you don’t have these issues that you have with a piece of plastic.”
Jacot said cell survival in forming tissue has limited the effectiveness of such scaffolds until now. “We think if it has a good vasculature, it can recruit the cells that it needs,” he said. Preliminary studies show the immature vasculature hooks into the heart’s existing system “fairly quickly without needing to be surgically attached,” he said.
The study initially will be geared toward infants who suffer from Tetralogy of Fallot, a birth defect in which blood bypasses the lungs. The problem occurs in 4.7 of every 10,000 infants born in the United States. Cell-free patches are currently used to repair the damage, but they neither degrade nor grow with the infant and often need to be replaced, Jacot said.
“The surgeons we work with feel like there needs to be something better,” Jacot said. “What they see is that 10 to 20 percent of patches need to be replaced over time for various reasons, like if it has a severe strain or calcifies.”
The proposed new patches consist of a polyurethane core strong enough to handle sutures and the constant stress provided by a beating heart, surrounded by a porous gel that will welcome cells from neighboring heart tissue.
The lab had already derived endothelial cells and mesenchymal stem cells from amniotic fluid stem cells and determined that combining them in a hydrogel scaffold induces the formation of a rudimentary vascular structure. The use of readily available amniotic stem cells from a newborn’s own mother cuts the risk of tissue rejection, Jacot said.
For epilepsy patients who receive primary care at The Center for Women and Children in Greenspoint, heading to their neurology appointment just got a lot easier. Instead of making the 20-mile trek to the Texas Medical Center, patients can “see” their neurologist without leaving their primary care clinic.
Texas Children’s Division of Neurology and The Center in Greenspoint recently launched Telehealth, an interactive telecommunications system that uses real-time video technology to create a communication link among the primary care physician (PCP), specialist and family during a patient visit. Implementing this new technology has enhanced access to patient care and facilitated the coordination of care for Greenspoint patients enrolled in Texas Children’s Health Plan.
“Even though our patients live in urban areas, access to care can still be challenging,” said Dr. Heidi Schwarzwald, a Texas Children’s pediatrician at The Center in Greenspoint. “The struggle getting to and navigating through the medical center could lead to missed appointments, poor medication adherence and increased emergency room visits, all of which telehealth aims to resolve.”
So, how does a telehealth visit work?
After a patient checks into the clinic, the patient is directed to a room just like any other visit except the neurologist is seen on a video screen. At the end of the visit, the PCP enters the room and performs the physical exam while the neurologist observes remotely from a telehealth room at main campus. Together, the PCP, family member and neurologist develop the care plan for the patient which is then printed out for the family. Medication adjustments and prescriptions are completed and sent to the in-house pharmacy at The Center. If lab work is needed, blood tests are drawn at the clinic and the results are both visible to the PCP and the neurologist via the shared electronic medical record. The neurologist bills for the office visit the same as any other office visit but a modifier is applied to distinguish the visit as telehealth. The PCP bills a facility fee but not an office visit.
Besides enhancing patient care access, Dr. Gary Clark, Texas Children’s chief of Neurology and Developmental Neuroscience, says Telehealth serves a much larger purpose than just visiting with a patient over the video system.
“Through Telehealth, we’re impacting patient care and improving outcomes by offering an educational and supportive environment for our patients,” Clark said. “By including an educational component in the telehealth visit, the neurologist and PCP are helping to co-educate patients on the importance of taking their seizure medication, thereby reducing unnecessary hospital admissions and emergency room visits.”
Since Texas Children’s Health Plan covers more than 390,000 lives spread throughout Harris and Jefferson counties, many of the patients do not live near the medical center, which is why The Center in Greenspoint was selected as the first launch site for the telehealth initiative.
Future plans are underway to expand the telehealth service to patient families at The Center for Children and Women Southwest, who are also members of Texas Children’s Health Plan.
Texas Children’s Hospital is excited to welcome Dr. William Pederson, a highly-regarded pediatric hand surgeon, to the Department of Surgery. Pederson, whose appointment was effective in January, is also a professor of surgery and pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine.
“With the addition of Dr. Pederson to our internationally renowned team of experts, we will further expand the highly-specialized, multidisciplinary care offered to children, adolescents and families who seek treatment at Texas Children’s,” said Dr. Larry Hollier, chief of plastic surgery at Texas Children’s and Baylor.
Pederson’s clinical interests include the management of vascular problems in the upper extremity, nerve injury and repair including brachial plexus, Volkmann’s ischemic contracture, facial paralysis and microsurgical reconstruction of complex extremity defects.
A native Texan, he is an honors graduate of The University of Texas at Austin and received his medical degree from The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, Texas. He completed an internship and residency in surgery at The University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas. Pederson continued his medical education with training in plastic and reconstructive surgery at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina and was a Christine Kleinert Fellow in hand surgery in Louisville, Kentucky. Following this, he completed a one-year fellowship in microsurgery at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia.
Pederson was previously on the faculty at Duke and subsequently served as chief of plastic surgery at the U.T. Health Science Center in San Antonio. He later joined Dr. David Green at The Hand Center of San Antonio. He was the Hand Surgery Fellowship Director at this center for the past 10 years and has helped train more than 80 hand surgeons in the past 25 years.
A member of numerous professional organizations, and in recognition of his many contributions to the field, Pederson was elected president of the American Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery in 2005. He also has served on the executive council of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand and is currently vice president of the American Association for Hand Surgery. Pederson was named a director of the American Board of Plastic Surgery in 2013, and serves on the Combined Committee on Surgery of the Hand with members of the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery. He is also on the executive council of the World Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery.
Pederson has authored more than 60 papers in peer-reviewed literature and 40 textbook chapters. He is an editor of the textbook “Green’s Operative Hand Surgery,” and serves on the editorial boards of the “Journal of Hand Surgery” and the “Journal of Reconstructive Microsurgery.” Pederson serves on the dean’s advisory council of the College of Natural Sciences at U.T. Austin and is a consultant to the Texas Medical Board. He was recently appointed by the state to the Texas Medical Disclosure Panel. In 2011, Pederson was selected as a visiting professor for the American Society for Surgery of the Hand and was selected in 2012 as a visiting professor for the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
Texas Children’s Heart Center has welcomed three new pediatric cardiologists to the team. Drs. Tobias Schlingmann, Betul Yilmaz and Justin Zachariah joined Texas Children’s in July.
“We are thrilled to welcome three new cardiologists,” said Dr. Daniel Penny, chief of cardiology at Texas Children’s Hospital and section head and professor of pediatrics-cardiology at Baylor College of Medicine. “Drs. Schlingmann, Yilmaz and Zachariah bring expertise which will help us continue to remain a preeminent cardiology program and better serve our patients and their families.”
Schlingmann, who also serves as an assistant professor of pediatrics-cardiology at Baylor College of Medicine, received his undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Hamburg, Germany. He completed his residency in pediatrics and fellowship in pediatric cardiology at Boston Children’s Hospital. Furthermore, he completed a senior fellowship in non-invasive cardiac imaging at Boston Children’s Hospital. Schlingmann’s clinical interests include the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease in infants, children, and adolescents in both the inpatient and outpatient settings.
Yilmaz, who also serves as an assistant professor of pediatrics-cardiology at Baylor, earned a combined Bachelor of Science and medical degree at Istanbul University. She did basic research in genetics at the University of Chicago Medical Center and completed a pediatric residency at Washington University in St. Louis and a pediatric cardiology fellowship at Columbia-Cornell University Medical Centers. She also completed an advanced imaging/fetal cardiology fellowship at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Yilmaz’s clinical interests include utilization of advanced cardiac imaging modalities such as echocardiography and fetal echocardiography to improve the diagnosis and management of congenital heart disease in fetuses and in pediatric population.
Zachariah, who also serves as an assistant professor of pediatrics-cardiology at Baylor, earned Bachelor of Arts degree at Rice University and medical degree at Baylor College of Medicine. He earned a Masters of Public Health from Harvard University and completed his pediatric residency at the University of California San Francisco. He also completed a clinical cardiology fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital and a visiting research fellowship with the Framingham Heart Study, supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Zachariah’s clinical interests include preventive cardiology in order to help patients avoid future cardiac disease and events such as heart attack and stroke through early detection and intervention.
Texas Children’s is the first pediatric hospital in the southwest United States to offer the EOS Imaging System, a state-of-the-art X-ray machine that provides three-dimensional, full body views of a patient’s bone structure while significantly reducing their exposure to radiation.
Unlike a traditional X-ray that captures one small area of the body, EOS provides a life-size picture of the child’s full skeleton in a weight-bearing standing or sitting position to capture natural posture and joint orientation, which is critical for physicians to diagnose orthopedic conditions precisely.
“In the past, if we were taking an X-ray of a child undergoing spine surgery, we had to take several images and piece them together,” said Texas Children’s Associate Radiologist-in-Chief Dr. Lane Donnelly. “This EOS technology allows us to observe every detail of the spine and the interaction between the joints and the rest of the musculoskeletal system in a 3-D view, enabling our orthopedic surgeons to make more accurate diagnoses and more informed treatment and surgical decisions.”
The EOS is used primarily to assess pediatric patients with spine, hip and leg disorders including scoliosis and leg length deformities. Unlike a conventional radiograph, this new technology is equipped with faster imaging capabilities. Clinic through put is enhanced by the EOS as the total exam cycle with EOS is under four minutes for the most complex spine exams compared to 15 to 20 minutes with conventional radiographs.
One of the machine’s enhanced safety features includes low radiation doses. The EOS uses nine times less radiation than a conventional radiography X-ray and up to 20 times less than a computed tomography (CT) scan. Because of the low radiation dose, EOS imaging is beneficial for orthopedic patients with scoliosis and other spinal deformities who require frequent imaging to monitor disease progression.
“EOS promotes a safer and more precise approach to pediatric care,” said Texas Children’s Division Chief of Orthopedic Surgery Dr. John Dormans. “We are always keeping our finger on the pulse to ensure we deliver the safest and most advanced care to our patients. This technology is certainly a big step in that direction.”
To learn more about this Nobel Prize-winning technology, watch this video of Drs. Dormans and Donnelly showcasing the high-tech features of the EOS Imaging System.