Pediatric Research
The Foundation’s mission focuses on infants and children. Accordingly, we prioritize initiatives that enhance the care, nutrition, and development of children from pre-birth to age 3.
The Foundation is particularly interested in fresh approaches to solving common, everyday problems or emerging issues within our defined focus area. Projects should focus on issues faced by care providers that, when implemented, will improve the health, nutrition and/or developmental outcomes for infants and young children. The board is particularly looking for practical solutions that can be easily and rapidly implemented on a broad scale with a predictable time frame to clinical application.
The Foundation is looking for projects that will result in ‘new’ information, treatments or tools that will result in a change in practice. The board rarely funds projects that are focused on sharing current information with parents or caregivers (parent or provider educational programs).
Major Focus Areas
Pediatric Health
Pediatric Nutrition
Environmental Hazards (Nutrient Competitors)
Pediatric Health
Project Focus Areas
- Better diagnostic techniques (more rapid, specific, sensitive, or less invasive)
- Better treatment (improved, less stressful or painful, optimal dosing, fewer side effects)
- Symptom relief
- Preventative measures
Recent projects include:
Marie Wang, MD, MPH
Stanford University School of Medicine
$349,997 over 3 years for a study using electronic health record data to improve how urinary tract infections are diagnosed and managed in children ages 0–2.
Lillian Juttukonda, MD, PhD
Boston Children's Hospital
$29,700 over 3 years for a study that will use nasal swabs to better understand how bronchopulmonary dysplasia develops in premature infants.
Nirupama Kannikeswaran, MD
Central Michigan University
$62,400 over 2 years for a study that will analyze sedation outcomes in infants ages 1–12 months to identify risk factors for serious adverse events and unsuccessful procedures.
Brock Polnaszek, MD
Medical College of Wisconsin
$349,877 over 3 years for a study to test whether adding warm sterile fluid during labor with thick meconium improves newborn breathing and first-year health outcomes.
Pediatric Nutrition
These programs respond to a long-time interest of the Foundation in assuring adequate nutrition for infants and children from pre-birth to age 3. Projects include applied research that evaluates the provision of specific nutrients and their related outcomes in infants and toddlers.
Project Focus Areas
- Benefits or side effects of supplementation of a specific nutrient
- Effects of deficiencies or excesses of a specific nutrient
- Timing and dosing of supplementation
- Issues related to general growth and feeding
Recent projects include:
Katie Strobel, MD, MSCR
University of Washington
$349,969 over 3 years for a study to test whether sodium supplementation improves growth and body composition in very preterm infants.
Alexandra Leegwater, MD
University of California Davis
$30,000 over 3 years for a study to evaluate whether a standardized feeding protocol can safely improve feeding and reduce hospital stays for babies with gastroschisis.
Geetika Kennady, MD, FAAP
Nemours Children’s Health
$349,561 over 3 years for a study to evaluate a faster and more reliable blood test to improve the detection of iron deficiency in newborns.
Ericka Biagioni, PhD
East Carolina University
$30,000 over 2 years for a study to test whether choline nutrition education during pregnancy improves maternal, placental, and infant health outcomes.
Environmental Hazards (Nutrient Competitors)
The Foundation is interested in projects that evaluate the effects of environmental hazards on children from pre-birth to age 3. Applied research projects that document the impact of, or ameliorate effects of, environmental hazards on the growth and development of infants and toddlers are the focus of this area of interest.
Note that the Foundation does not restrict this area to the ‘natural environment’ but considers exposures within the infant’s or toddler’s environment, whether manmade or natural. These exposures may be caused by hazards within the NICU environment (noise, light, medical equipment, etc.), the home environment (carpeting, plastics, etc.), or exposures from breastmilk caused by parental behavior (marijuana, drugs, etc.).
Project Focus Areas
- Exposures and their effects on infants and toddlers
- Methods to lessen the effects of exposures
Recent projects include:
Gretchen Bandoli, MPH, Phd
University of California San Diego
$350,000 over 3 years for a study to examine whether common weight loss medications affect breast milk and infant growth and development during lactation.