Archive for Nancy Fliesler
Previous COVID-19 or MIS-C does not protect kids from Omicron
You would think that having had COVID-19 once, you’d have antibodies that would protect you against repeat infections. But studies of adults have shown that Omicron doesn’t go by that logic. A new study, led by Dr. Adrienne Randolph of Boston Children’s Hospital and Dr. Surender Khurana of the Food and Drug Administration, confirms that ... Read More
Getting to the heart of heart muscle function
Every heart muscle cell, or cardiomyocyte, is studded with tiny, intricate structures called dyads. The dyads are like orchestra conductors: They coordinate incoming electrical signals with release of calcium in the muscle, triggering contraction. When dyads work properly, the different segments of heart muscle contract in unison; when they don’t, heartbeats may be too weak ... Read More
Cell therapy for lung disease? Proof-of-concept study shows promise
Many serious pulmonary diseases, including genetic lung diseases, lack an effective treatment other than the most extreme: lung transplant. A team at Boston Children’s Hospital envisions a much better option: cell therapy, using lung stem cells created from patients’ own cells to repair or replace damaged lung tissue. For patients with genetic lung diseases, the ... Read More
Old vaccine, new tricks? Unlocking the BCG vaccine’s potential
Could a century-old vaccine offer clues for designing the vaccines of tomorrow? Ofer Levy, MD, PhD, director of the Precision Vaccines Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, wants to find out. One of the world’s oldest and most widely used vaccines, the Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) tuberculosis vaccine may at first seem like an unlikely source of ... Read More
COVID-19’s devastating toll: An increase in adolescent suicides and mental health crises
The past decade has seen worrisome increases in self-harm, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts among adolescents. Two new studies from Boston Children’s Hospital show that the situation became even more acute with the onset of COVID-19. Epidemiologist Maimuna Majumder, PhD, and colleagues at the Computational Health Informatics Program (CHIP) at Boston Children’s partnered with public health ... Read More
Fetal brain imaging predicts neurodevelopment of babies with congenital heart disease
Children with congenital heart disease (CHD) often have neurodevelopmental impairment. Until fairly recently, this was thought to stem from complications of cardiac surgery or reduced oxygen supply to the brain due to the heart defect. Now we know that some babies with CHD have impaired brain development in utero because of low oxygen supply to ... Read More
A new angle on the cause of Alzheimer’s disease: Accumulating brain mutations
Alzheimer’s disease is marked by a loss of functional neurons in the brain. But what causes this loss? A new study reveals that people with Alzheimer’s have an abundance of newly acquired mutations in their neurons — more than people of the same age without Alzheimer’s, and enough to disable genes important to brain function. ... Read More
Beyond fluid buildup: Rethinking congenital hydrocephalus
Hydrocephalus is classically seen as a plumbing problem, the result of too much cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in the brain or dysregulation of fluid flow. It is usually treated with shunts to drain the CSF, or with ETV/CPC, which makes a small hole to drain the CSF and burns off the choroid plexus tissue that produces ... Read More
Climate and children’s health: A conversation with Dr. Aaron Bernstein
When Boston Children’s Hospital pediatrician Dr. Aaron Bernstein was in medical school, he was told that climate change — an interest of his since 7th grade — belonged in the realm of politics, not medicine. One professor told him flat out, “You’re trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.” But another professor ... Read More
When a critically ill child is homeless
On a single night in 2020, roughly 172,000 in families with children and 34,000 unaccompanied youth under age 25 were homeless, according to government figures. Many more families are housing insecure amid skyrocketing rents. A large body of research finds that both situations put children at increased risk for health problems. Parents may have ... Read More