Child Health Research Institute awards 26 grants for 2017

The Stanford Child Health Research Institute has awarded grants to support 26 research projects led by faculty members and postdoctoral scholars. The institute funds innovative clinical and translational research on maternal and child health.

The following individuals each received $35,000 to fund their pilot and early-career projects:

• Daniel Abrams, PhD, instructor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, for “Longitudinal development of brain systems underlying voice processing in children with autism spectrum disorder.”
• Tamar Green, MD, instructor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, for “Brain and behavior in Noonan syndrome.”
• Ngan Huang, PhD, assistant professor of cardiothoracic surgery, for “Bilayered nanofibrillar vascular graft for treatment of congenital heart defect.”
• Prasanna Jagannathan, MD, assistant professor of medicine, for “Impact of DHA-PQ chemoprevention in pregnancy on transfer of antimalarial antibodies to newborns.”
• Jiangbin Ye, PhD, assistant professor of radiation oncology, for “Targeting one-carbon unit metabolism for neuroblastoma differentiation.”

Grants for new ideas

The following faculty members each received $35,000 to fund high-risk, high-impact projects outside their currently funded areas of research:

• Valerie Baker, MD, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, for “Vascular health of children conceived via in vitro fertilization.”
• Anne Dubin, MD, professor of pediatrics, for “Stress inoculation through virtual reality in the pediatric electrophysiology laboratory.”
• Sarah Heilshorn, PhD, associate professor of materials science and engineering, for “Development of a tissue-engineered small intestine.”
• Desiree LaBeaud, MD, associate professor of pediatrics, for “The spectrum of Zika disease in Grenada.”
• Olivia Martinez, PhD, professor of surgery, for “Evaluating for viral etiologies associated with liver failure of unknown etiology.”
• Karen Parker, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, for “Biomarker discovery in children with autism.”
• Lee Sanders, MD, associate professor of pediatrics, for “School-system consequences of birth outcomes: A medical school-education school-school district collaborative.”
• Dennis Wall, PhD, associate professor of pediatrics and of biomedical data science, for “The GapMap Project: A mobile surveillance system to map autism as well as gaps in autism services globally.”

Grants for clinical research

The following clinician-educators each received $25,000 to fund their patient-oriented projects:

• Despina Contopoulos-Ioannidis, MD, clinical associate professor of pediatrics, for “Early life antibiotic exposure and childhood obesity.”
• Victoria Cosgrove, PhD, clinical assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, for “Who is bullied? An examination of biological and psychological correlates of adolescent peer victimization.”
• Hayley Gans, MD, clinical associate professor of pediatric infectious diseases, for “Risk factors for cytomegalovirus and Epstein-Barr virus infections in pediatric solid organ transplant patients.”
• Scott Sutherland, MD, clinical associate professor of pediatrics, for “Using kinetic GFR to identify AKI events and progression.”
• Joyce Teng, MD, PhD, clinical professor of dermatology and of pediatrics, for “Investigating genetic mutations associated with lymphatic malformation.”

Grants for postdoctoral scholars

The following individuals each received $55,000 to fund their postdoctoral fellowships:

• Barbara Baro, PhD, postdoctoral scholar in pediatric infectious diseases, for “Discovering essential host factors for Plasmodium falciparum malaria.”
• Lang Chen, PhD, postdoctoral scholar in psychiatry and behavioral sciences, for “Representation and connectivity abnormality underlying face-processing deficit in children with ASD.”
• Julia Co, PhD, postdoctoral scholar in pediatric infectious diseases, for “Elucidating Salmonella enterica Typhi infection using a novel human intestinal organoid model.”
• Marianne Goodwin, PhD, postdoctoral scholar in pediatric stem cell transplantation and regenerative medicine, for “Gene editing of the FOXP3 gene for the cure of IPEX syndrome.”
• Marko Jakovljevic, PhD, postdoctoral scholar in radiology, for “Functional ultrasound imaging in the neonate brain using coherent flow power doppler.”
• Sooyeon Lee, PhD, postdoctoral scholar in endocrinology, gerontology and metabolism, for “The role of succinate dehydrogenase subunit B (SDHB) in beta-cell biology and diabetes.”
• Jianfeng Li, PhD, postdoctoral scholar in orthopedic surgery, for “Engineering 3-D in vitro co-culture models for deciphering pediatric brain tumor-vascular.”
• Szu-Yuan Pu, PhD, postdoctoral scholar in infectious diseases, for “Roles of BMP2K in cell signaling and dengue viral infection.”