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An estimated 30 to 50 percent of teens with congenital heart conditions will experience anxiety and/or depression disorders, but new research published in the journal Pediatric Cardiology finds that yoga, meditation and peer support prove to be effective tools in reducing stress that is often associated with these debilitating conditions.

Children’s National Health System is a member of a public-private research collective that was awarded up to $14.8 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to launch a data resource center for cancer researchers around the world in order to accelerate the discovery of novel treatments for childhood tumors. Contingent on available funds, five years of funding will be provided by the NIH Common Fund Gabriella Miller Kids First Pediatric Research Program, named after Gabriella Miller, a 10-year-old child treated at Children’s National.

Premature birth, which affects one in 10 U.S. babies, is associated with altered metabolite profiles in the infants’ cerebellum, the part of the brain that controls coordination and balance, a team led by Children’s National Health System clinician-researchers report Aug. 15, 2017 in Scientific Reports. Pre-term infants in the study had significantly lower levels of a chemical marker of nerve cell integrity and significantly higher concentrations of a chemical marker of cellular membrane turnover.

During the millions of pregnancies that occur in the United States every year, expectant moms learn oodles about their developing fetuses over months of gestation. But the placenta, a vital and temporary organ that shelters the fetus—delivering life-sustaining nutrients and oxygen, getting rid of toxic by-products and modulating the immune system to protect the pregnancy—largely remains a mystery. A team of Children’s National Health System research scientists is beginning to provide insights about the poorly understood placenta.

Two nationally known experts in hematology and sickle cell disease have joined Children’s National Health System in leadership roles in the Division of Hematology and the Comprehensive Sickle Cell Disease Program. Suvankar Majumdar, M.D., will lead the hospital’s blood disorders team as the Division Chief of Hematology, and Andrew Campbell, M.D., will serve as Director of the Comprehensive Sickle Cell Disease Program, one of the largest such programs in the nation.

Marva Moxey-Mims, M.D., a leading expert in chronic kidney disease and glomerular disease who has conceptualized and overseen multicenter clinical studies aimed at improving chronic kidney disease treatment, has been named Chief of Pediatric Nephrology at Children’s National Health System.

Because obesity affects one in six U.S. children and adolescents, there is a pressing need to identify the subset of overweight or obese kids at the highest risk of developing cardiovascular and metabolic complications and to direct interventions to them. Since frameworks used to identify adults at heightened risk for such complications are a poor fit for kids, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) now recommends that pediatricians instead focus on clusters of cardiometabolic risk factors that are associated with obesity.