Dear Friends,

I hope all of you are enjoying the increasingly sunny weather indicating the start of Spring! It has been a long, difficult winter.

This past month we had a few different development events hosted for UNC Children’s. The annual Krispy Kreme Challenge run organized by the NC State Park Scholar students was held virtually this year but was a big success. In Chapel Hill, the UNC students leading the Carolina For The Kids Benefit Reception was held in February and also a big success! Numerous UNC faculty gave inspirational short speeches encouraging donations and there were some great items available for auction. In fact, Benny won this great Spiderman mask signed by Stan Lee. These college students at both schools are truly amazing and we are lucky to have their support!

Please join me in welcoming our new Division Chief for Pediatric Radiology. Dr. Carolina Guimaraes joins us from Stanford University where she was on faculty. She completed her pediatric radiology and her neuroradiology fellowships at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and was on faculty there prior to working a Nemours Children’s in Florida and then Texas Children’s Hospital. She is our first pediatric radiologist with neuroradiology specialty training and we are eager to benefit from her clinical expertise and leadership!

The Pediatric Emergency Department has officially moved to the ground floor of the Neurosciences Hospital in what was formerly called the Emergency Department Transition Unit (EDTU). Please see the pictures below of the new space. Thank you Cheryl Jackson, Dan Park and Pedro Fernandez-Cueto for your exceptional leadership and your work with hospital leadership to make this happen.

Finally, as spring comes many of us have started preparing for in-person academic meetings. I hope most of you are able to travel and network with peers this spring as restrictions related to COVID slowly shift. One of the big spring meetings each year is the Pediatrics Academic Societies Meeting. We are starting to pull together all of the UNC accepted science presentations, workshops and committee meetings, and our volume of work accepted for presentation is impressive! We will also have a UNC reception at the event and a UNC Children’s Booth in the Exhibit Hall.

 

Thanks to each of you for your investment in children’s health.

 

Thank you for all that you do!

Jenny Miedema joined Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine on February 1, 2022. Ms. Miedema received her BA from Washington University in St. Louis in 2001 and her MSN form the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in 2005. She completed her training as a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner at Duke University in 2010 where she continued to work in NICU through 2017. Jenny will be working in the UNC Newborn Critical Care Center on a part-time basis. Welcome Jenny!

Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common type of birth defect in the United States, affecting an estimated 40,000 infants each year. Approximately one in five patients born with CHD have an abnormality of their right ventricular outflow tract (RVOT) and pulmonary valve, which makes it difficult for blood to travel from the heart to the lungs. These patients require open-heart surgery or other interventions early in life to address these malformations. However, these interventions are usually not a permanent solution, and these patients often develop a need for additional interventions such as pulmonary valve replacement. Many of these patients are suitable candidates for the Medtronic Melody® transcatheter pulmonary valve (TPV). At UNC Hospital, the Congenital Interventional Cardiology team has been successfully implanting the Melody® valve in children and adults since 2014. Unfortunately, there are many patients who need pulmonary valve replacement but are not candidates for the Melody® valve due to their specific type of heart defect or previous repair. Until recently, the only option for these patients has been to undergo an additional open-heart surgery.

UNC Hospital is committed to broadening treatment options for patients with congenital heart disease. In March of 2021, the Medtronic Harmony™ transcatheter pulmonary valve was approved by the FDA and released to a select group of interventional cardiologists for use. Following extensive training and collaboration with national experts, Drs. Frantz, Heal, and Yeung successfully implanted the new Harmony™ valve in three carefully selected patients in January, 2022. The results were excellent and all three patients were discharged home the following day with no complications.

The UNC Pediatric and Adult Congenital Cardiology teams are pleased to have the opportunity to offer the new Harmony™ valve as a less invasive treatment option for congenital RVOT and pulmonary valve disease. This new technology will allow patients to gain the long-lasting benefits of a new pulmonary valve without the need for open-heart surgery.

Nine-year-old John Wortman hosts a newscast from his home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. John started John News shortly after his school stopped meeting in person in March, 2020.

Dr. Yvonne Paris, Assistant Professor of Pediatric Cardiology, working with Novant Health UNC Children's in Wilmington spoke with WWAYTV3, ABC News in Wilmington about heart health in young people.

As part of the lead up to the WWAY Health Fair, Dr. Paris discussed the types of conditions a pediatric cardiologist treats, congenital versus acquired conditions, as well as detection and treatment options.

Dr. Paris did a great job representing UNC Children’s and sharing the importance of having subspecialty providers to care for kids in our local communities.

The most common question that UNC Health pediatric pulmonologist Celia Loughlin, MD, hears is also the hardest to answer: Does my child have asthma? “People want a definite answer, and it’s not black and white. Diagnosing asthma requires looking at the whole picture,” says Dr. Loughlin, who is director of the UNC Children’s Allergy & Asthma Center.

Wekon-Kemeni Completes Vot-ER Civic Health Fellowship

Christel Wekon-Kemeni, MD, Pediatric PGY-3 Resident, recently completed the 10-month leadership program, the VotER Civic Health Fellowship. This leadership development program that aimed to support, teach, and train a learning community of Vot-ER healthcare providers across the country in addressing issues regarding civic engagement through a variety of learning settings such as lectures, videos, small group sessions, practical hands-on experiences, and more. Throughout the program, fellows were tasked with building a Civic Health Action Project to apply their newfound knowledge and skills to a problem in their local community. 

on Thurs, February 17th...

The AAAAI is proud to introduce The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: Global (JACI: Global), the newest member of the AAAAI family of journals. The debut issue of the Gold Open Access publication officially launched earlier today.

“We are very excited to introduce JACI: Global to the allergy/immunology community, as well as the larger medical research community,” said Editor-in-Chief David B. Peden, MD, MS, FAAAAI, who is at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. “JACI: Global provides a home for allergy and immunology research that is in early stages of development and may provide a good rationale for larger studies.” Read the full press release.

JACI: Global joins the AAAAI’s family of journals, JACI, the most cited journal in the field of allergy and clinical immunology, and JACI: In Practice, which places an emphasis on practical clinical research and the latest recommendations for diagnosis and treatment. Read the Debut Issue.

Congratulations to Dr. Andrea Trembath on her new position as Associate Medical Director of the NCCC! In addition to various medical director responsibilities that she will share with Dr. Wood, Dr. Trembath will be focused on quality improvement and patient safety in our NICU. She will be the responsible individual for responding to all SAFE reports, identifying trends/areas of concern, and continuing to work closely with the NCCC QI Council on existing and upcoming projects.

It’s never too late to reflect and celebrate the research in the School of Medicine! Please check out our 2021 Research Round-up Publication which contains 1-2 research highlights from each Department from 2021. The featured highlights are truly outstanding and represent the great breadth of research done in our School, so don’t miss this annual issue!

The Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Global Health Core - led by Drs. Carl Bose, Melissa Bauserman, and Jackie Patterson - is happy to share the new brochure for the Global Network for Women's and Children's Health Research (Global Network). Since 2001, the Global Network has worked to improve the health and survival of pregnant women, fetuses, and infants in low and middle income countries through research partnerships

Dorey A. Glenn, MD, MPH - Pediatric Nephrology - was recently awarded a K23 Award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease for his project: Protecting Patients with Glomerular Disease from Vaccine-Preventable Infections. Influenza and pneumococcal infections occurring in individuals with glomerular disease are preventable contributors to excess healthcare utilization, morbidity, and mortality. Vaccination is a powerful and cost-effective method to attenuate infectious burden, however, vaccine immunogenicity and effectiveness have been under-studied in this high-risk population. The objective of this proposal is to describe influenza and pneumococcal vaccine effectiveness and functional vaccine immunogenicity in patients with glomerular disease.

Misty Good, MD, MS - Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine - recently published:

IL-17RA-signaling in Lgr5+ intestinal stem cells induces expression of transcription factor ATOH1 to promote secretory cell lineage commitment. Lin X, Gaudino SJ, Jang KK, Bahadur T, Singh A, Banerjee A, Beaupre M, Chu T, Wong HT, Kim CK, Kempen C, Axelrad J, Huang H, Khalid S, Shah V, Eskiocak O, Parks OB, Berisha A, McAleer JP, Good M, Hoshino M, Blumberg R, Bialkowska AB, Gaffen SL, Kolls JK, Yang VW, Beyaz S, Cadwell K, Kumar P. Immunity. 2022 Feb 8;55(2):237-253.e8. doi: 10.1016/j.immuni.2021.12.016. PMID: 35081371

Luke CJ, Markovina S, Good M, Wight IE, Thomas BJ, Linneman JM, Lanik WE, Koroleva O, Coffman MR, Miedel MT, Gong Q, Andress A, Campos Guerrero M, Wang S, Chen L, Beatty WL, Hausmann KN, White FV, Fitzpatrick JAJ, Orvedahl A, Pak SC, Silverman GA. Commun Biol. 2022 Jan 12;5(1):47. doi: 10.1038/s42003-021-02953-x. PMID: 35022507 

Wesley Jackson, MD - Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine - was recently recognized Early Career Investigator Spotlight: Wesley M. Jackson. Jackson WM. Pediatr Res. 2022 Feb 12. doi: 10.1038/s41390-022-01996-y. PMID: 35152265 

Chengwen Li, MD, PhD - Hematology/Oncology - Current hemophilia treatments have limitations for a significant number of patients. Based on research from Dr. Li, UNC-connected startup GeneVentiv Therapeutics is developing the first universal, single-dose gene therapy for all types of hemophilia, including the toughest cases. Read More...

Mike O'Shea, MD, MPH - Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine - recently published:

Nosavan NP, Smith LM, Dansereau LM, Roberts MB, Hofheimer JA, Carter BS, Helderman JB, McGowan EC, Neal CR, Pastyrnak S, Della Grotta SA, O'Shea TM, Lester BM.J Perinatol. 2022 Feb 7. doi: 10.1038/s41372-021-01308-y. PMID: 35132152

Bhattacharya A, Freedman AN, Avula V, Harris R, Liu W, Pan C, Lusis AJ, Joseph RM, Smeester L, Hartwell HJ, Kuban KCK, Marsit CJ, Li Y, O'Shea TM, Fry RC, Santos HP Jr. Nat Commun. 2022 Feb 4;13(1):706. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-28365-x. PMID: 35121757 

Aris IM, Perng W, Dabelea D, Ganiban JM, Liu C, Marceau K, Robertson OC, Hockett CW, Mihalopoulos NL, Kong X, Herting MM, O'Shea TM, Jensen ET, Hivert MF, Oken E; Program Collaborators for Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes. JAMA Netw Open. 2022 Feb 1;5(2):e2146873. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.46873. PMID: 35119461 

Kenneth B. Roberts, MD - Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics - recently published:

Pantell, R. H., Roberts, K. B., Adams, W. G., Dreyer, B. P., Kuppermann, N., O'Leary, S. T., Okechukwu, K., Woods, C. R., Jr, & SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEBRILE INFANTS (2021). Pediatrics, 148(2), e2021052228.

Ginny Taylor, MD - Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine - recently published: Extreme prematurity: Risk and resiliency. Taylor GL, O'Shea TM. Curr Probl Pediatr Adolesc Health Care. 2022 Feb 15:101132. doi: 10.1016/j.cppeds.2022.101132. PMID: 35181232

Matthew Vogt, MD, PhD - Infectious Diseases and Michelle Hernandez, MD - Allergy/Immunology - recently published: recently published, Enterovirus D68: a test case for the use of immunological surveillance to develop tools to mitigate the pandemic potential of emerging pathogens. Nguyen-Tran, H., Park, S. W., Messacar, K., Dominguez, S. R., Vogt, M. R., Permar, S., Permaul, P., Hernandez, M., Douek, D. C., McDermott, A. B., Metcalf, C., Grenfell, B., & Spaulding, A. B. The Lancet. Microbe, 3(2), e83–e85. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2666-5247(21)00312-8. Read More...

North Carolina freshman outfielder Reece Holbrook has returned to the university and community where he was born and raised - and where his life was saved.