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Two physician-researchers from Children's Hospital Boston are among 58 investigators nationwide to receive a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the government's highest honor for promising researchers starting independent careers. The awards, presented at a White House ceremony, went to Catherine Gordon, MD, MSc, for her work on anorexia nervosa and bone loss in young women, and Kenneth Mandl, MD, MPH, for his development of automated biosurveillance systems to monitor the health of populations in real time.

Eight federal departments and agencies nominated this year's PECASE winners. Gordon and Mandl were among 12 researchers nominated by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. John H. Marburger, science advisor to the President and director of the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy, presided over the awards ceremony.

Gordon, an attending physician in the Divisions of Adolescent Medicine and Endocrinology at Children's Hospital Boston, was awarded for her research on treatment of bone loss in adolescent girls and young women with anorexia nervosa. Bone loss afflicts many anorexic patients, putting them at risk for osteoporosis and fractures. Funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), Gordon is evaluating the effects of a new hormonal treatment on bone density in these patients.

Mandl, also an assistant professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and part of the Affiliated Faculty of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, was nominated for the PECASE award by the NIH's National Library of Medicine.

Children's Hospital Boston is home to the world's largest research enterprise based at a pediatric medical center, where its discoveries have benefited both children and adults since 1869. More than 500 scientists, including eight members of the National Academy of Sciences, nine members of the Institute of Medicine and 10 members of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute comprise Children's research community. Founded as a 20-bed hospital for children, Children's Hospital Boston today is a 325-bed comprehensive center for pediatric and adolescent health care grounded in the values of excellence in patient care and sensitivity to the complex needs and diversity of children and families. Children's also is the primary pediatric teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. For more information about the hospital and its research visit: www.childrenshospital.org/research/.