Improving Pediatric Care

“This collaboration, fueled by philanthropy, brings together two world-class institutions, Technion and Cincinnati Children’s, and two leading laboratories, each with complementary skills and assets, to improve pediatric medicine on a global scale.”

–Marc Rothenberg, MD, PhD

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology are working together to improve pediatric medicine on a global scale by establishing a collaborative data-driven research program to utilize big data in novel ways.

Through this collaboration, experts within each institution will train a core group of investigators skilled in biomedical informatics, which uses large data sets to help clinicians, researchers and scientists improve precision medicine, discover treatments, and deliver the best possible healthcare.

These highly trained researchers will support collaborative studies between Cincinnati Children’s and the Technion. The goal: to elevate pediatric medicine on a global scale by leveraging Cincinnati Children’s expertise in patient care, basic research, and translational research with Technion’s excellence in computer science and bioinformatics.

The collaboration, called the “Cincinnati Children’s–Technion Bridge to Next-Gen Medicine,” includes joint workshops, online lectures, faculty/student exchange visits, and research projects. To date, Cincinnati Children’s and Technion have co-sponsored joint academic symposia to exchange expertise between faculty and students, supported postdoctoral training and launched joint research in multiple areas of medicine. This work has already led to early findings published in the scientific literature—but this is just the beginning.

The Cincinnati Children’s–Technion Bridge to Next-Gen Medicine recently announced the first joint bioinformatics research grants, totaling $200,000 and funded through philanthropy. The selected projects for funding will be awarded $50,000 each, and were selected through a joint review process, involving representatives from both institutions. Funded projects include:

• Developing Artificial Intelligence Approaches for Diagnostics and Predicting Treatment Efficacy in Eosinophilic Esophagitis. Marc Rothenberg, MD, PhD and Yoni Savir, PhD

• Deep Learning in Point of Care Ultrasound: Applications in Pediatric Oral and Maxillofacial Emergency Visits for Improving Diagnostic Clinical Workflow. Patrick Ruck, DDS; Sarat Thikkurissy, DDS, MS; Surya Prasath, PhD; Omri Emodi, MD, DMD; and Jiriys Ginini, MSc, DMD

• Resolving Hematopoietic Stem Cell Heterogeneity from Highly Quantitative Long-read Single-cell RNA-Sequencing. Nathan Salomonis, PhD and Yael Mandel-Gutfreund, PhD

• Using Eye-Tracking and Machine Learning Technology to Quantify Joint Attention and Shared Reading Quality in Children with from Disadvantaged Backgrounds and with Medical Complexity. John S. Hutton, MD, MS and Tzipi Horowitz-Kraus, PhD

Michelle Kohn, Cincinnati Children’s Global Director for Israel, noted that Cincinnati Children’s–Technion Bridge to Next-Gen Medicine is one of several flagship collaborations in the medical center’s Israel Exchange Program.

“The goal of the Israel Exchange Program is to leverage the complementary strengths of Cincinnati Children’s and Israel to improve clinical care for children worldwide, expertly train pediatric providers and scientists, achieve breakthrough discoveries, and invent and commercialize products to improve children’s health globally,” Kohn said.

Professors Tzipi Horowitz-Kraus and Yoni Savir