Cedars-Sinai’s pediatric investigators are scrutinizing the earliest origins of disease in a bid for faster detection and more precisely tailored therapies. Using multiple omics tools, they will map young patients’ unique genetics and cell biology as early as the neonatal period. The initiative aims to foreshadow future health and sets the stage for a sweeping paradigm shift: Insights into disease trajectories could yield novel tools to diagnose and, ultimately, prevent diseases that strike at every age.
At the helm of the effort is David Rowitch, MD, PhD, associate director of Basic and Translational Research at Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children’s. His groundbreaking research in glial cell development in the brain has improved early diagnoses of neurological diseases and genetic risks. In a trial he co-led in England, whole-genome sequencing in more than 500 seriously ill infants resulted in diagnoses for one-third of them, one-fifth of whom would otherwise have gone undiagnosed.
Rowitch will lead an expert team across genetics, genomics, regenerative pediatric medicine, molecular biology, maternal-fetal medicine and neurodevelopment in targeting the most life-threatening and disabling conditions affecting pediatric patients.
“These children urgently need answers,” he emphasized in a discussion with Discoveries introducing the predictive model, reproduced below.