The Center for Pediatric Research Receives Five Year NIH Grant

Wilmington, DE – The Center for Pediatric Research (CPR) at the Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children was recently awarded an additional five-year, $9.5-million Center for Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Center for Research Resources (NCRR). This competitive award will allow Nemours to continue to expand the CPR and support the recruitment of additional faculty to this diverse pediatric clinical and research facility.

Supported by a similar grant for $10.2 million in 2004 and a $1.6 million American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) supplemental grant in 2009, the Center for Pediatric Research was established to not only sustain translational research programs by clinicians and scientists, but also to build independent, cutting-edge programs at Nemours. This funding has assisted Nemours Biomedical Research in the development of eight such Center programs, including Applied Clinical Genomics, Cardiac, Orthopedic, Childhood Cancer, Clinical Diagnostics, Clinical Pharmacology, Pediatric Auditory and Speech, and Pediatric Lung Research.  

Over the past six years, it has also supported six target investigator projects and three pilot projects. Of paramount importance is the continued support of the laboratory infrastructure under the guidance of the core directors: Drs. Rob Akins, Tim Bunnell, Rob Mason, Judith Ross, and Katia Sol-Church.

“Grant applications and renewals are intensely competitive,” said Dr. Thomas H. Shaffer, Director and Principal Investigator of the CPR. “Grants like this from the NIH help fulfill a main goal of the Center for Pediatric Research—to attract some of the best and brightest translational researchers to Delaware, while building state-of-the-art pediatric research programs and expanding our existing programs on pediatric disorders.”

A central component of the CPR’s mission is to provide junior faculty entering their research careers with the resources and the academic environment needed to maximize their potential. To date, investigators leading a diverse group of studies in areas such as cardiology, orthopedics, and genetics have shown remarkable academic progress. This is demonstrated by their publications, grant support, and academic activities, such as mentoring students and postdoctoral fellows.

Funding from this recent NIH COBRE grant renewal will allow three new target investigators and one transitional investigator to begin research programs (described below) as well as recruit additional mid- and senior-level translational researchers to facilitate the program. Additionally, the program will support pilot projects in order to grow new research programs within Nemours.

“We look forward to another five years of meaningful research,” said Dr. Shaffer and Dr. Carolyn Schanen, Co-Director of the Center. “It’s our mission to support our investigators with their COBRE projects, ultimately moving the science forward toward more cures and better lives for our patients.”

COBRE Projects:

• Kamin Johnson, PhD, is a reproductive toxicologist whose research focus is on gene-environment interactions in urogenital malformations, the most common male birth defect.
• Thierry Morlet, PhD, is an Assistant Research Scientist to the Auditory and Speech Sciences group at Nemours. His proposed studies will combine physiological measures with behavioral measures of speech perception to examine the characteristics of nerve pathways that modulate hearing function.
• Soonmoon Yoo, PhD, is a cellular neurobiologist with a primary interest in nerve injury and repair. His studies focus on developing techniques to modulate nerve regeneration.
• AnneMarie Brescia, MD, is a pediatric rheumatologist, whose research will focus on finding predictive biological markers for Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis, the most common rheumatic disease of childhood.