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Children's National welcomes new faculty of the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation

Washington, DC—Children’s National Medical Center has appointed several faculty to the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation. Additions include key investigators for the institute’s Systems Biology, Bioengineering, and Pain Medicine initiatives.

  • Laurie Conklin, MD, Principal Investigator, Systems Biology Initiative. Dr. Conklin is a pediatric gastroenterologist, and director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Center at Children’s National Medical Center. Dr. Conklin’s collaborative research identifies and studies biomarkers in IBD (Crohn disease and ulcerative colitis) in children. These biomarkers might be used to objectively gauge the effectiveness of current and prospective IBD treatments, and identify patients at higher risk for developing complicated disease. Dr. Conklin joins the Sheikh Zayed Institute from the FDA Office of New Drugs.
  • Rohan Fernandes, PhD, Principal Investigator, Bioengineering Initiative. Dr. Fernandes conducts research in biofabrication. He builds synthetic micro- and nanostructures for delivering therapeutics to precise locations within the body using modalities for targeting markers expressed at the treatment site. These constructs facilitate “painting” tumor margins so surgeons can precisely see where tumor tissue begins and ends. Dr. Fernandes’ constructs are relevant in cases where a surgeon cannot easily operate, as in brain stem gliomas, to deliver treatments in a minimally invasive manner.
  • Angela Fletcher, PsyD, Principal Investigator, Pain Medicine Initiative, Director of Psychology Services for the Complex Pediatric Pain Medicine Outpatient Clinic. Dr. Fletcher specializes in the assessment and treatment of children suffering complex pain and their families. Her research interests include the environmental and family factors that affect pain perception, school functioning for children with complex pain, and the relationship between sleep and pain.
  • Axel Krieger, PhD, Principal Investigator, Bioengineering Initiative. Dr. Krieger’s expertise includes magnetic resonance (MR) compatible robotics, integrated tool design, and image guidance for minimally invasive surgeries. At the institute, he applies this expertise to addressing pediatric challenges, with a focus on robotics, from concept to market introduction.
  • Marius G. Linguraru, PhD, Principal Investigator, Bioengineering Initiative. Within the Bioengineering Initiative, Dr. Linguraru develops tools for computer-aided diagnosis, minimally-invasive interventions, and multi-organ modeling of anatomy and physiology in children. These efforts enhance traditional medical imaging modalities and create modern clinical tools for pediatric radiology and oncology. Dr. Linguraru is internationally known for his work in radiology and medical image processing, particularly in harnessing software based technology to enhance the clinical use of existing imaging tools.
  • Sarah Rebstock, MD, PhD, Director, Pediatric Pain Medicine Outpatient Clinic and Complex Pain Medicine at Children’s National Medical Center, and Principal Investigator, Pain Medicine Initiative, Sheikh Zayed Institute. Dr. Rebstock is a fellowship trained pediatric anesthesiologist who oversees the multi-disciplinary Complex Pediatric Pain Medicine Outpatient Clinic, which treats children with complex pain. The clinic engages all areas of pain medicine to develop individualized treatment plans comprised of alternative and traditional pain medicine interventions, as well as psychological support when needed based on each child’s unique needs.
  • Ziv Yaniv, PhD, Principal Investigator, Bioengineering Initiative. Dr. Yaniv’s main areas of interest are image-guided interventions, medical image analysis, computer vision, and software engineering. He actively supports the development of open source software, and is one of the lead developers of the free open source Image-Guided Surgery Toolkit (IGSTK) as well as a contributor to the Insight Registration and Segmentation toolkit (ITK).
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For more information, contact Jennifer Stinebiser at 202-476-4500

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