A Meeting of Great Minds
How Stanford Researchers and Packard Physicians Are Transforming Pediatric Medicine

BY JENNIFER YUAN

WINTER 2006 -- What if...

• Cancer, diabetes, and other chronic diseases could be prevented through childhood vaccinations?
• The millions of children worldwide with AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis could be treated with a proetin their bodies naturally produce?
• Congenital defect could be repaired before babies were born?

Novel answers to these and similar questions are beginning to emerge from a flurry of collaborative thinking now under way at Packard Children's Hospital and Stanford. In their quest for treatments and cures for childhood diseases, Packard's pediatric physicians and surgeons have begun to look beyond their own fields, pooling their brainpower with sometimes unlikely colleagues. Biologists and pharmacologists, social scientists and engineers, along with experts in countless other fields, now are practicing "team science" -- seeking to generate new tools for tackling complex medical problems.

Philip Pizzo, MD

This campus-wide synergy is spearheaded largely through five Stanford Institutes of Medicine that recently were established by Philip Pizzo, MD, dean of the School of Medicine. Transcending departmental boundaries, the Institutes, which focus on neuroscience, heart disease, immunity/transplantation/infection, cancer, and regenerative medicine, facilitate cross-field communication and experimentation among scientists and physicians who already are experts in their own fields.

These "virtual" Institutes, which include faculty from Packard Children's, the School of Medicine, Stanford Hospital, and the University, target healthier futures for both children and adults, a fact that Pizzo, a specialist in childhood cancers and infectious diseases, finds fundamental.

As a pediatrician, he says, "I see the value of pediatrics across almost every area of medical research that we pursue in the Institutes. In fact, pediatrics is at the forefront of many of our most leading-edge initiatives, including cancer and stem cell research.

"Our environment is ideal for pediatric discovery," Pizzo adds. "Packard Hospital's integration with the University creates a combination of expertise that is virtually unmatched at other academic medical centers or stand-alone children's hospitals." Furthermore, he says, the kind of collaboration fostered by the Institutes thrives under the Silicon Valley's creative and innovative spirit.

Stanford's Clark Center: home to cross-cutting research in medicine, bio-sciences, and engineering.

The goal of all this collaboration is to move experimental findings more quickly from research labs to the patients who need them—an effort known as "translational research."

While pediatricians are well aware of the major challenges to children's health, says Alan Krensky, the Shelagh Galligan Professor in the School of Medicine, they may not have the specialized skills needed to find a solution. "They are now turning to basic scientists who can help understand how and why diseases occur, or to engineers who can help build new surgical tools or medical devices to better meet children's needs," Krensky says.

Similarly, basic scientists are becoming more interested in pediatrics because of the enormous impact it has on the future well-being of society. "Diseases that used to be pediatric problems -- congenital heart disease, cystic fibrosis, and Down syndrome -- are crossing into adulthood as more children survive longer," Krensky says. "At the same time, conditions that typically did not show up until adulthood, like Type 2 diabetes, are hitting patients at much younger ages. The multidisciplinary work we are doing in the Institutes reflects the fact that there are no boundaries in pediatrics anymore."

The following stories illustrate how the Institutes are bringing together these innovators who speak different scientific languages but share a common interest: better health for children and adults alike.

In order to translate basic research into improved treatments for adult and pediatric patients, Stanford's Institutes of Medicine align directly with clinical counterparts at Stanford Hospital and Packard Children's Hospital.

Translational Research

Keeping the Beat: Blocking Heart Failure in Children

Attacking Autism on All Fronts

Genetic Signposts Point to Leukemia Treatments

How Sex Hormones Affect
the Fetal Brain

A Perfect Place to Heal

Host vs. Microbe:
Disarming the Bad Bugs