Research Blog
Published on March 10, 2016
Research suggests racism experienced in childhood can lead to
health problems later in life.While overall health has improved, from reduced infant
mortality to improved outcomes for a variety of diseases, racial and ethnic
disparities in health remain a significant problem that... Read More
Published on March 4, 2016
“When I ask my patients, they tell me ‘no, I don’t smoke’,” says
Diane Tanaka, MD, medical
director of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine at Children’s Hospital Los
Angeles. “It wasn’t until I saw them with e-cigarettes that I realized that I
wasn’t asking the right question.”... Read More
Published on March 2, 2016
Comparison of
radiation exposure in x-ray based photon radiotherapy (left) and proton
radiotherapy (right). Image source: Taheri-Kadkhoda et al. Radiation Oncology
2008 3:4 doi:10.1186/1748-717X-3-4, Creative Commons
Attribution 2.0 Generic. Medulloblastoma, the most common... Read More
Published on February 29, 2016
Robert
Seeger, MD, division head for Basic and Translational Research of the
Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA)
has been selected for the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Pediatric
Blood and Marrow Transplant Consortium (PBMC... Read More
Published on February 27, 2016
The Flint, Michigan water crisis raises concerns about the
effects of lead poisoning on children. According to the World Health
Organization, lead poisoning accounts for 0.6% of the global burden of disease.
Children are particularly susceptible to the effects of lead poisoning... Read More
Published on February 24, 2016
In 2006, researchers studying obesity stumbled upon a gene
called PID1 (Phosphotyrosine Interaction Domain containing 1). They found the
gene played a role in insulin resistance in obese patients, making it a target
for development of new treatments for obesity.Three years after... Read More
Published on February 21, 2016
A once relatively unknown virus has recently made headlines
as over 4000 cases of severe birth defects connected to the virus have been
reported in Brazil. The Zika virus is related to the dengue and west Nile
viruses and has many researchers scrambling to uncover both how the... Read More
Published on February 18, 2016
Children’s
Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) and Thermo Fisher Scientific have agreed to develop
a next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based panel designed specifically for pediatric
cancer research. The assay would be CHLA’s first NGS panel designed to
target biomarkers associated with... Read More
Published on February 16, 2016
Normal lung (image A)
compared to lung developed with low levels of VEGF (image B) demonstrating
abnormal air spaces and lung tissue. Photo courtesy of Grikscheit Lab, The
Saban Research Institute of Children’s Hospital Los AngelesInvestigators at The Saban Research Institute of... Read More
Published on February 14, 2016
Here we see proliferating cardiomyocytes or heart cells from
zebrafish. Zebrafish, a tropical fish in the minnow family commonly used in
scientific research, is known best for its regenerative abilities. Researchers at
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles led by Ching-Ling Lien,
PhD... Read More
Published on February 12, 2016
Patients with acute
lymphoblastic leukemia are at increased risk for bone fractures due to bone
loss resulting from treatment. This decrease in bone density (as illustrated
here) can occur as soon as the first month of treatment according to new
research out of Children’s... Read More
Published on February 10, 2016
Stickers proclaiming “BPA-free” status are increasingly
common on plastic bottles. BPA or Bisphenol A was used at one point to increase
the strength of plastic, though was phased out when studies demonstrated the chemical
had several significant negative health. Since then, BPS... Read More
Published on February 8, 2016
Leukemia cells
(yellow) shown dispersed among fat cells (red) surrounded by supportive cells
(blue). Image courtesy of Steven Mittelman,
MD, PhD, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.An interdisciplinary research team at The Saban Research
Institute of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles... Read More
Published on February 5, 2016
Throughout football season and leading up to the Super Bowl, an
increase in ACL injuries is inevitable. Image courtesy of Shutterstock.A common and often devastating injury in sports – anterior
cruciate ligament (ACL) injury can require surgery to restore knee stability
and... Read More
Published on February 3, 2016
Neuroblastoma cells
under a microscope labeled with fluorescent molecules. Image courtesy of
Shutterstock.Building upon more than two decades of basic research
conducted at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Araz Marachelian, MD,
of CHLA, and her colleagues at pediatric academic... Read More
Published on February 2, 2016
Food allergy or intolerance can cause symptoms ranging
from a harmless skin rash to a potentially lethal anaphylactic shock. An
estimated 15 million Americans suffer from food allergies, many of them
children. The prevalence of food allergy is higher among children
and is... Read More
Published on January 28, 2016
Exposure to anesthesia
during labor and delivery results in morphological changes in the developing
fetal brain. Photo credit: Bradley Peterson, MD,
Institute of the
Developing Mind, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.Recently recommended in F1000Prime, which identifies significant... Read More
Published on January 26, 2016
A recent study demonstrated a link
between bariatric surgery and improved mental health outcome, specifically
reduced depression among patients after bariatric surgery. To learn more about
the relationship between mental health and obesity in children, we spoke to Mari Radzik,... Read More
Published on January 21, 2016
A genetic variation, or the
“s” allele, was associated with thicker cortex in the high risk (top row) but
with thinner cortex in the low risk (bottom row) individuals. Image courtesy of Ravi Bansal, PhD, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.Building on a 30-year,
three-generation... Read More
Published on January 20, 2016
In a new article published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, corresponding
author Elizabeth
Sowell, PhD of Children’s
Hospital Los Angeles, in collaboration with authors from Harvard Medical
School and San Diego State University, reviewed ongoing research efforts to
determine... Read More