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The Adolescent Breast Clinic at Children’s hosted the first Adolescent Breast Symposium on April 2, 2009 at the Joseph B. Martin Conference Center at Harvard Medical School. The symposium was established to assemble practitioners from various disciplines and institutions to collaborate and discuss ideas to improve the quality of care for adolescents with benign breast disorders. The founders of the multi-disciplinary Adolescent Breast Clinic, Brian Labow, MD, a plastic surgeon, and Amy DiVasta, MD, MMSc, an adolescent medicine specialist, led the symposium. Key topics included management, challenges, and research on adolescent breast disorders such as macromastia, gynecomastia, and breast asymmetry. The event included Children’s faculty from the departments of Plastic Surgery, Adolescent Medicine, Endocrinology, Gynecology, and Gastroenterology and Nutrition. Patricia Simmons, MD, an adolescent medicine specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN and professor of pediatrics at the Mayo Medical School and Julia Corcoran, MD, a pediatric plastic and reconstructive surgeon at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, IL and assistant professor of surgery at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine also were in attendance.
More information: childrenshospital.org/breast
In March, Children’s Hospital Boston launched the Technology Development Fund, designed to accelerate the translation of laboratory and clinical research excellence into new products for patient care. The grants, ramping up to more than $1 million per year, will fund projects that traditionally aren’t done in academic labs, but are necessary for product development, including large-scale laboratory and animal studies and prototype construction. An external board of venture capitalists and leaders of biotech, pharmaceutical and device companies will vet applications from research groups at Children’s and act as project advisors.
More information on the application process and timeline: childrensinnovations.org
AARP Magazine ranked Children’s among the top hospitals in the country for heart care, making it the only pediatric center named to the list. The rankings were compiled for the magazine by Consumers’ Checkbook, which asked doctors where they were most likely to send patients with difficult cases. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a partner of Children’s, was ranked among the top cancer centers in the country.
Interactive map of top hospitals: aarp.org/health
Support from Children’s partnership with the Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) Foundation’s Pediatric Neuromuscular Clinical Research Network has allowed Children’s to establish a new monthly multidisciplinary SMA clinic, as well as an annual SMA Day for families, researchers and physicians. The consortium is collaborating on several clinical studies, including the development of clinical assessment tools, like electrical impedance myography and a biomarkers study. In addition, Children’s Neuromuscular Clinic received funding as a regional center in the Muscular Dystrophy Association Clinical Research Network. As a member of this network,Basil Darras, MD (above), director of Children’s Neuromuscular Program, is heading up a natural history study of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD)—the first to relate the molecular genetics of dystrophinopathies to the longevity of DMD patients.
More information: childrenshospital.org/sma
Check out the spring edition of Vector, Children’s bi-annual research magazine. Topics include the promise of induced pluripotent stem cells, genetic research on the congenital myopathies, how the economic downturn may affect research and a physician in Critical Care Medicine who is tackling a variety of medical problems using novel drug-delivery techniques.
To read Vector online: childrenshospital.org/vector
To subscribe to the print edition: childrenshospital.org/subscribe
In May, Children’s launched an online community for our faculty and alumni. Members can:
- find friends and colleagues from residency and fellowships
- securely communicate with alumni and current faculty
- create professional sub-groups using a fully integrated suite of collaborative tools (e.g. blogs, document sharing, calendars)
- find out about the latest news and CME events at Children’s
- and much more
To receive your invitation to this community, please send your email address, name and information about your training at Children’s to marketing@childrens.harvard.edu.
While the H1N1 virus has subsided (at the time of this printing), Children’s has launched a Web site for health professionals, including fact sheets and referral information.
More information: childrenshospital.org/h1n1
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