Two Johns Hopkins physicians in Pediatric
Anesthesiology and Pediatric Critical Care are among the
first recipients of grants from the Hartwell Foundation to
support innovative, early-stage biomedical research that
will benefit children. Kenneth Brady, assistant professor,
won a $300,000 Hartwell Individual Biomedical Research
Award, and postdoctoral fellow Jennifer Lee was named a
Hartwell Fellow and awarded $100,000.
Brady and Lee are working together to develop new
tools that physicians can use to more effectively treat
infants and children who have suffered traumatic head
injury. Not only is serious head injury the leading cause
of death in children, many youngsters who survive suffer
disabilities because of secondary injury to the brain
caused by swelling. "Manipulating cerebral blood flow to
meet, but not exceed, the metabolic demands of the brain is
a cornerstone in efforts to create an optimal environment
for healing of the injured brain," Brady said. "Poor
understanding of vascular autoregulation in the pediatric
brain is arguably the most glaring deficit in the care of
children with acute neurologic injury."
"This is research that will have a huge impact on
children," Lee said, explaining that current treatment
guidelines for children are based on research done with
adults.
The researchers' goal is to develop child-specific
guidelines and, thereby, improve outcomes for infants and
children. Given the increasing challenge of obtaining
federal funding, especially for new initiatives by younger
investigators, this research would not have been possible
without the Hartwell Foundation's support, they said. "When
we started this project, it was uncharted territory. "We
didn't have enough data to take a proposal to NIH," Brady
said.
The Hartwell Foundation funding came at a critical
juncture, enabling the researchers to build in preliminary
findings and apply their lab research to the clinical
setting. "It is an extraordinary opportunity," Lee said.
The Hartwell Foundation, established by California
businessman Lawrence Smead, invited only 10 U.S. research
universities to participate in its inaugural grant
competition. Smead is the founder and chief executive
officer of SASCO, the largest privately held electrical and
data contractor in the nation.
The inaugural Hartwell Individual Biomedical Research
Awards provide support to 12 researchers at nine
institutions. Each invited university held an internal and
open competition of its own design that met foundation
guidelines, and nominated the best proposals from its
faculty and research staff. All nominees participated in
personal interviews, which included a presentation of their
proposed research. A unique feature of the award is that
each Hartwell Investigator receives a video conferencing
system to enhance communication with the foundation and to
encourage collaboration with other researchers.
Each participating institution also received a
Hartwell Fellowship, awarded to one postdoctoral candidate
of its choice and designed to enable the recipient to
achieve advanced professional training in biomedical
research.
In making its selections for the Individual Biomedical
Research Awards, Hartwell President Frederick Dombrose said
the foundation took into account the institution's
commitment to support the investigator, plans for
collaboration with other researchers on the proposed
project and the potential for rapid translation of the
research results to clinical applications that would
benefit young patients.
"The Hartwell Foundation believes that philanthropy is
a serious responsibility and that wealth appropriately used
is an essential mechanism for improving the state of
mankind," Dombrose said. "We are honored to provide
financial support to these outstanding researchers."
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