The Red Carpet Rolls Out for 2024 Cardiac Center Innovation Awardees

By Nancy McCann

Each year, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Philly Spin-In supports the Cardiac Center Innovation Awards that offer transformative approaches to major challenges in pediatric heart disease. This year’s annual team-cycling fundraising event benefiting cardiac research and care raised more than $1 million with the help of more than 2,000 supporters, including patient families, clinicians, sponsors, and donors.

The heart pumping party bolsters the work of CHOP’s Cardiac Center, one of the world’s largest and most accomplished pediatric heart centers, and funds five research projects that aim to push new boundaries of research in the field.

The envelope please… and the 2024 Cardiac Center Innovation Awards for scientific research go to:

Nick Pratap, MB, BChir, and Renee Willett, MD, for ‘Congenital Heart Disease Panorama’

Renee Willett, MD

Jayant "Nick" Pratap, MB, BChir

Dr. Pratap, a cardiac anesthesiologist-intensivist, and Dr. Willett, a cardiologist intensivist, are leading a project to address an unmet need for tools to support holistic, accurate, and detailed communication with clinicians and families of children with congenital heart disease (CHD). Their goal is to harness the overwhelming volume of clinical information resulting from a patient’s journey through the healthcare system for the maximum benefit of each CHD patient.

They aim to develop and validate a highly interactive, easy-to-use application that provides an overview of the overall hospital course of a child with CHD with the capability to “drill down” on areas of interest.

The “CHD Panorama” app will integrate data from a variety of sources and present key findings graphically so that the breadth and depth of the hospitalization can be accessed within a single, convenient interface.

“We are excited to build on the strong framework laid by the Cardiac Center Data office,” Dr. Pratap said. “By presenting data in an accessible and customizable format, the app will empower clinicians to tailor care more closely to patient needs.”

Matthew Jolley, MD, and Alison Pouch, PhD, for ‘Systemic Semilunar Valve Mechanics and Simulated Repair in Congenital Heart Disease’

Alison Pouch, PhD

Matthew Jolley, MD

Through biomechanical assessment, Drs. Matthew Jolley and Alison Pouch are leading an interdisciplinary CHOP-Penn team that plans to determine why current approaches to systemic semilunar valve (SSV) repair fail. They will also investigate methods to design improved repairs before going to the operating room by using computational simulation to iteratively optimize repair.

“We believe that understanding biomechanics of abnormal SSVs and explorations of simulated repair will markedly improve our ability to characterize, risk stratify, and surgically treat SSV dysfunction, thereby improving long-term outcomes and quality of life in patients with SSV dysfunction,” Dr. Jolley said.

Ryan Callahan, MD, and Danish Vaiyani, MD, for ‘Calculating Wall Shear Stress in Pulmonary Veins of Infants Using Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI): A Pilot Study’

Danish Vaiyani, MD

Recent literature has demonstrated a possible link between the wall shear stress within pulmonary veins and the progression of pediatric pulmonary vein stenosis, a disease that is often progressive with marginal survival. Led by Attending Physicians Drs. Ryan Callahan and Danish Vaiyani, the team aims to demonstrate the feasibility of measuring wall shear stress with a cardiac MRI study. This approach may unlock new paradigms for treatment as wall shear stress can potentially be used to screen high-risk patients, surveil known patients, and guide therapy.

“The Cardiac Center Innovation Award allows us to develop a potentially groundbreaking tool for pulmonary vein stenosis and for this, we are grateful and honored,” Dr. Callahan said.

Stanley Stachelek, PhD for ‘Progression of Mitral Valve Regurgitation in the Pediatric Population’

Mitral valve regurgitation (MR), arising from myxomatous mitral valve disease (MVD), also known as mitral valve prolapse, is common in the pediatric patient population, but the physiology of mitral valve interstitial cells (MVICs) in children has been understudied. Little is known about how MVICs respond to altered mechanical forces, observed in MVD in childhood that contribute to progression to degenerative MR.

Dr. Stachelek’s team will address this unexplored research area by examining the differential gene and protein expression of MVICs under conditions modeling both normal and aberrant mechanical forces that approximate MVD. Through a collaboration with CHOP Postdoctoral Fellow Devin Laurence, PhD, (PI Matthew Jolley, MD), this funding mechanism will allow them to leverage CHOP’s innovative cardiac imaging technology to acquire actual biomechanical data from pediatric patients.

This data can then be applied to in vitro studies using a state-of-the-art dynamic bioreactor, capable of delivering physiologically relevant biomechanical forces, which is a completely novel approach to studying MVD in the pediatric patient population.

“This grant allows for establishing a collaboration between two seemingly unrelated research groups that may lead to a better understanding of the development of heart valve disease in the pediatric patient population,” Dr. Stachelek said.

J. William Gaynor, MD, and Audrey Odom John, MD, PhD, for ‘Fecal Volatile Organic Compounds and Necrotizing Enterocolitis in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit’

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is a serious intestinal illness that occurs when the mucosal barrier of an immature or compromised gastrointestinal tract is breached by bacteria, resulting in an inflammatory cascade that may lead to gut ischemia and perforation. NEC is most common in preterm infants, but also occurs in neonates with CHD, especially in the postoperative period.

This team, led by Dr. Gaynor and Dr. John, will analyze the stool volatile organic compound profile from fecal samples to determine if there is an early biomarker sign for NEC in the vulnerable CHD population. Participants include all neonates with CHD enrolled in the Cardiac Center/Birth Defects Biorepository and patients expected to undergo cardiac surgery in the neonatal period (<28 days of age). Stool samples and clinical data will be collected beginning at Cardiac Intensive Care Unit admission. The primary aim of this project is to determine if these changes can be used to identify neonates with CHD at risk for NEC prior to the onset of clinical symptoms.

“We greatly appreciate the support of the Cardiac Center, which makes this type of collaboration possible,” Dr. Gaynor said.

Two groups received programmatic awards for advancing clinical care, in addition to the scientific research awards:

Amy Shultz, MD, MSCE; Danielle Campbell, MS, RDN, LDN; Sara Baumgarten; and Katelyn Zeoli, BSN; for “Cardiac Center Feeding Tube Weaning Program” and Colleen Driscoll, PhD; Amanda Shillingford, MD; Marissa Bremer, MSN; and Amy Jo Lisanti, PhD, RN, CCNS; for “Inpatient Family-Centered Neurodevelopmental Program.”