Morgridge Fellows

Sara Kibrom, MD
Tashia and John Morgridge Endowed Postdoctoral Fellow in Pediatric Translational Medicine (2019-2020) 

Education
BS, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 2010
MD, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, 2015
Residency, Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital, 2018

Research Focus
Dr. Kibrom’s research focus is on the management of hypertension in children with chronic kidney disease in Ethiopia. Hypertension is one of the most common complications seen in chronic kidney disease, affecting up to 50% of patients with kidney disease. Treatment of hypertension has been shown to slow kidney disease progression. In a country like Ethiopia with very limited medical resources, chronic dialysis and kidney transplant are unavailable to children; management of complications that can delay the progression of kidney disease become the focus of treatment. The appropriate diagnosis of hypertension is also important as there is often a higher rate of undiagnosed hypertension in pediatric patients. The appropriate diagnosis and management of hypertension takes on an even greater clinical importance in low resource settings. Strict blood pressure control targeting less than the 75th percentile is recommended for children with chronic kidney disease, but this has not been studied in children living in the developing world. There are potential negative consequences of a lower blood pressure target such as acute kidney injury, hypotension, loss of autoregulation in the face of even mild volume depletion in patients on angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors. Patients in low-resource countries might be at an increased risk for the above events due to suboptimal nutritional status and limited access to medical care at the time of an acute illness. The goal of this study is to improve the management of hypertension in children with chronic kidney disease in low resource settings as well as evaluate the risks and benefits of a lower blood pressure target in a potentially vulnerable patient population. 

Jill Krissberg, MD
Tashia and John Morgridge Endowed Postdoctoral Fellow in Pediatric Translational Medicine (2019-2020)

Education
BS, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2011
MD, Chicago Medical School of Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Sciences, 2015
Residency, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital

Research:
Dr. Krissberg’s research focuses on health disparities in patients with glomerular disease presenting as nephrotic syndrome. Her project explores data on glomerular disease patients, both adults and children, enrolled in the Cure Glomerulonephropathy (CureGN) Network. She will investigate how health outcomes differ by racial-ethnic groups and socioeconomic status, and how different confounders may contribute to different outcomes. Outcomes of interest to be explored in this study include health-related quality of life, medical utilization, and medication adherence. Dr. Krissberg’s goal is to identify disparities in health outcomes in patients with glomerular disease.

Rachelle Lo, MD
Tashia and John Morgridge Endowed Postdoctoral Fellow in Pediatric Translational Medicine (2019-2020)

Education:
BS, University of California, Berkeley
MD, University of California, Irvine
Residency, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland

Research:
Dr. Lo’s goal is to contribute to food allergy prevention, specifically peanut allergy prevention, which is the most common allergen in children, and typically is not outgrown. There is now strong evidence that early introduction of peanut in high-risk infants can reduce peanut allergies, and national guidelines have been initiated with aims of preventing peanut allergy. Her project this year focuses on analyzing how these guidelines are being implemented. Dr. Lo is using claims data to analyze a large nationally representative group of children to ascertain the degree to which testing, and diagnosis trends have been impacted by the LEAP trial and national guidelines.

Mentors:
Sean McGhee, MD
Clinical Associate Professor, Pediatrics (Allergy and Immunology)

Alan Schroeder, MD
Clinical Professor, Pediatrics (Critical Care and Emergency Medicine)

Justine Colette Maller, MD, PhD
Tashia and John Morgridge Endowed Postdoctoral Fellow in Pediatric Translational Medicine (2019-2020)

Education
BA, University of California at Berkeley, 2005
PhD, University of Colorado, 2012
MD, University of Colorado, 2014
Residency, Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center, 2017
Fellowship, Stanford University / Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, 2020

Research Focus
Systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis (sJIA) is a chronic, often debilitating, pediatric inflammatory disease of unknown cause that can be difficult to diagnose and effectively treat. Developing better diagnostic tools and new therapies requires a more detailed picture of the biology underlying sJIA. To this end, Dr. Maller has been implementing high-resolution technologies to explore how extracellular vesicles (EVs) — tiny particles in the blood produced by cells to communicate with each other — contribute to the disease processes driving sJIA. Using very small volumes of blood samples and with the generous support of the Tashia and John Morgridge Endowed Postdoctoral Fellowship in Pediatric Translational Medicine, Dr. Maller has successfully developed novel methodologies to characterize EVs in sJIA patients’ blood and study how these molecular profiles change between active and inactive disease states, as well as how sJIA EVs differ from those circulating in the blood of healthy pediatric patients. Beyond providing important insight into sJIA pathogenesis and illuminating potential disease-specific biomarkers, Dr. Maller’s work aims to demonstrate that high-resolution EV characterization can help us enter the era of precision medicine for pediatric rheumatic disease by revealing more general mechanisms driving inflammation across a broad range of systemic diseases in the pediatric population.

Mentor:
Elizabeth Mellins, MD
Professor of Pediatrics (Human Gene Therapy)

Jonathon J. Parker MD, PhD
Tashia and John Morgridge Endowed Postdoctoral Fellow in Pediatric Translational Medicine (2019-2020)

Education:
AB, Dartmouth College, 2008
MD, PhD University of Colorado, 2015
Residency, Neurological Surgery, Stanford, 2015-Present

Research:
Dr. Parker’s research is focused on applying minimally invasive neuromodulation techniques to address the unique challenges of pediatric epilepsy. Up to a third of children with epilepsy continue to seize despite medication, prompting a surgical evaluation. Robotic-assisted implantation of depth electrodes into the brain (SEEG) has transformed our ability to precisely localize seizure onset within brain networks. However, despite these advances, doctors remain largely reliant on surgical removal or ablation of brain tissue for seizure control. Responsive electrical brain stimulation offers a less invasive and reversible alternative to removal of brain tissue. Working with Dr. Gerald Grant (neurosurgery) and Dr. Brenda Porter (neurology), Dr. Parker is seeking to understand the nature of brain oscillations recorded from gray and white matter in the epileptic brain. The goal of this research is to develop pediatric-epilepsy tailored closed-loop neuromodulation treatments.

Ragini Malika Shyam, MD
Tashia and John Morgridge Endowed Postdoctoral Fellow in Pediatric Translational Medicine (2019-2020)

Education:
BS, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MD, East Tennessee State University Quillen College of Medicine
Residency: General Pediatrics, MedStar Georgetown University Hospital

Research:
Dr. Shyam’s research focuses on the identification of biomarkers in pediatric leukemia and lymphoma.  Recent advances in targeted next generation sequencing have created new opportunities for application in the characterization and monitoring of pediatric cancers.  Using CAPP-Seq (Cancer Personalized Profiling by Deep Sequencing) to identify circulating tumor DNA from blood samples, rather than biopsies, her goal is to deepen the understanding of the genetic landscape of pediatric Hodgkin Lymphoma.  Dr. Shyam also hopes to apply this technique clinically by monitoring a patient’s response to therapy and adjusting his or her treatment course accordingly.