Mary Ehlenbach, MD, Initial Recipient of the O’Connor Family Professorship in Pediatrics
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Above, the sun sets on an ornate W crest icon at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. (Photo by Jeff Miller/UW-Madison)
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Congratulations to Mary Ehlenbach, MD (Associate Professor, Division of Hospital Medicine), who was appointed as the initial recipient of the O’Connor Family Professorship in Pediatrics. The professorship was initiated by Richard O'Connor, MD (retired Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics), to advance and support ambulatory pediatric health care delivery with an emphasis on the care of children with chronic conditions.
 In addition to her duties as associate professor in the Division of Hospital Medicine, Ehlenbach (pictured left) is the medical director of the Pediatric Complex Care Program at American Family Children’s Hospital (AFCH). Ehlenbach led the development of the Pediatric Complex Care Program at AFCH in 2014 and was site principal investigator for a multimillion-dollar, three-year Health Care Innovation Award funded by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in collaboration with State of Wisconsin Department of Health Services and Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin.
“It is humbling to be selected as the inaugural recipient of the O’Connor Family Professorship in Pediatrics,” remarked Ehlenbach at the news of her appointment. “Serving patients and families in the Pediatric Complex Care Program has brought great professional fulfillment and provided many sources of inspiration.”
Since 2017, the Pediatric Complex Care Program at AFCH has been a robust interprofessional team that provides medical co-management and care coordination for hundreds of children with medical complexity, filling a unique niche for this new and growing population.
“I am grateful to the Department of Pediatrics for supporting the Pediatric Complex Care team’s growth and development over the last several years,” stated Ehlenbach. “The generous support of the O’Connor Family will allow new innovations in the care of children with medical complexity to be made possible.”
About Richard O’Connor, MD
Richard O’Connor, MD, received his medical degree from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine & Public Health in 1967. In the 1970s and 80s, he was a general pediatrician with the Wausau Medical Center, a multispecialty group practice in northern Wisconsin. While in practice, O'Connor was made Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin Department of Pediatrics and was Chair of Pediatrics at Wausau Hospital.
In 1987 he began a medical management career as the lead medical director for Physicians Health Services, and later went to work for United Healthcare as a senior medical director. Following his retirement from consulting in 2007, O’Connor volunteered his time with The Mediation Center in Savannah, GA, and supervised medical students at outreach clinics in San Lucas Toliman, Guatemala. He was also the president of the Board of Directors of Voice of Children Ministries, Inc., which provided funds for the education and care of needy children in the Igbo states of Nigeria. O’Connor passed away this September.
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The Quest for a Kinder Cure
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Above, Paul Sondel, MD (center) discusses research with Dream Team members Alexander Rakhmilevich, PhD (left) and Jacquelyn Hank, PhD (right). (Photo by John Maniaci/UW Health. Article written by Chris Malina/UW Carbone Cancer Center. Story and photo are shared with permission.)
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Paul Sondel, MD, PhD (Professor and Research Director, Division of Hematology, Oncology & Bone Marrow Transplant) knows his work involves a balance of means and ends. A pediatric oncologist, he helped drive medical advancements that now cure 80 percent of children with cancer. That’s good. But the balance: the treatments children go through come at a cost that’s more than financial. Due to the cancer and the intensity of the treatments, many patients face “toxicities during treatment, as well as lifelong medical issues, not only because of the cancer but because of what it took to treat the cancer,” he says.
Former pediatric cancer patients have to deal with potential late effects of their treatments. Some experience organ failure in their 20s and 30s; some face the emergence of secondary cancers.
Sondel’s goal is to help international efforts to successfully cure all forms of childhood cancer and to do it in a way that gives children the best chance of living a long and healthy life.
“You can’t have quality of life without life,” he says, “but we need to be concerned about quality of life and, from the very beginning, be picking those treatments that are not only curative but also cause the fewest problems downstream.”
Full story.
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Regretful Notification of the Passing of Renata Laxova, PhD
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 We share sad news of the passing of Renata Laxova, PhD, emeritus professor of genetics and pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin. Laxova was a clinical geneticist who played a major role in the development of genetics services for the people of Wisconsin. A survivor of the Holocaust, Laxova created the Statewide Genetic Services Network in the 1970s, a coordinated system of service providers with a designated "genetics contact” in every county of the state. This was the first such service in the nation and served as a model for numerous such services later established throughout the country. She also helped to create our school's Master of Genetic Counselor Studies degree program, which is one of the oldest and best in the country. Laxova was a renowned medical genetics educator who taught medical students, genetic counselors, and medical residents. She passed away November 30, 2020, in Tucson, Arizona.
Our deepest sympathies go to her daughters, Anita Laxova (Research Program Manager, Division of Pulmonary & Sleep Medicine) and Daniela Lax, and her grandson Zander Steichen.
An article about Prof. Laxova will be published in Quarterly in 2021. We will share that article with the Department of Pediatrics community when it is avaialble.
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Drs. Al-Subu, Garcia-Prats, Kaluarachchi and Mohr Elected to Society for Pediatric Research
Congratulations to Awni Al-Subu, MD (Assistant Professor, Division of Critical Care), Anthony "Tony" Garcia-Prats, MD (Associate Professor, Divisions of General Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine and Global Pediatrics), Dinushan Kaluarachchi, MBBS (Assistant Professor, Division of Neonatology & Newborn Nursery) and Emma Mohr, MD, PhD (Assistant Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases), on their recent elections to the Society for Pediatric Research (SPR). The SPR encourages and supports pediatric research endeavors by creating a network of multi-disciplinary researchers to improve child health. To qualify for membership, individuals must be independent researchers conducting ongoing hypothesis-driven research in a field related to pediatrics. In total, 34 Department of Pediatrics faculty are SPR members. Profiles of Al-Subu, Garcia-Prats, Kaluarachchi and Mohr and their research interests will be published in an upcoming issue of Milestones.
Pediatric Fellow Receives SCCM Star Research Achievement Award
 Congratulations to Nicole Kamps, MD (Pediatric Critical Care Fellow) on receiving the 2021 Star Research Achievement Award from the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) for her abstract “The Effect of Early Corticosteroid Therapy on Outcomes in Children with Septic Shock.” This award is given to the best 60 scored abstracts submitted to the SCCM's annual congress and recognizes excellence in critical care research. Kamps' research was done under the mentorship of Pelin Cengiz, MD (Associate Professor, Division of Critical Care).
Stephen Meyn, MD, Elected to American Pediatric Society
 Congratulations to Stephen Meyn, MD, PhD (Professor, Division of Genetics & Metabolism) on his recent election to the American Pediatric Society (APS). APS members have distinguished themselves as child health leaders, teachers, scholars, and clinicians and whose important contributions are recognized nationally or internationally. Since joining our faculty in 2017, Meyn was appointed the first director of the UW Center for Human Genomics and Precision Medicine. His recently-funded project is also putting UW–Madison at the cutting edge of genome science, driving disease gene discovery, and gaining novel insights into cancer biology. Meyn was nominated to APS by Drs. James Gern and Ellen Wald.
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New Grants
Daniel Jackson, MD, and James Gern, MD, Receive NIH Supplemental Funding
 
Congratulations to Daniel Jackson, MD (Associate Professor, Division of Allergy, Immunology & Rheumatology), Principal Investigator, and James Gern, MD (Professor and Division Chief, Division of Allergy, Immunology & Rheumatology), Co-Principal Investigator, for their 9-month supplemental funding on Inner City Asthma Consortium (ICAC3). The $401,456 supplement from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIH/NIAID) is titled, “The effects of allergen associated type-2 inflammation and particulate matter inflammation in the airway epithelium on SARS-CoV-2 infection.” In collaboration with Matthew Altman, MD (Benaroya Institute) and Jason Debley, MD (Seattle Children’s Hospital), the team plans to define the contributions of underlying allergic inflammation and pollution exposure to the susceptibility and airway immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Olachi Mezu-Ndubuisi Awarded Grant from UnityPoint Health-Meriter Foundation
 Congratulations to Olachi Mezu-Ndubuisi, MD, OD (Assistant Professor, Division of Neonatology & Newborn Nursery), who was recently awarded $50,000 from the UnityPoint Health-Meriter Foundation for a one-year study entitled, “Inflammatory Biomarkers as Predictors of Neonatal Disease (IPN) Project”. With data from previous studies, this work will identify inflammatory biomarkers to predict which neonates with very low birth weight in the Meriter Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit are likely to develop neonatal diseases such as chronic lung disease, necrotizing enterocolitis, retinopathy of prematurity, intraventricular hemorrhage, and patent ductus arteriosus. The goal of the project is to create strategies that can be implemented to identify newborns at risk of developing these diseases in hopes of improving their neurodevelopmental outcomes through early interventions, care, and monitoring.
Yury Bochkov, PhD, Awarded Subaward Contract from NHLBI and Rutgers
 Yury Bochkov, PhD (Senior Scientist, Division of Allergy, Immunology & Rheumatology), was recently awarded a $194,250 subaward through collaborators from The Rutgers State University, and supported by the National Institutes of Health/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NIH/NHLBI). Their five-year R56 project, titled “Mechanisms of Rhinovirus-induced airway hyperresponsiveness: an airway smooth muscle perspective,” will identify mechanisms underlying rhinovirus (RV)-induced alterations in airway relaxation that are VEGF-dependent, thereby identifying new targets for effective treatment of RV-induced exacerbations of airways diseases. Previous work demonstrated that RV-C exposure of airway epithelial cells induces specific soluble mediators, including VEGF165, and attenuates β2 agonist-induced cAMP production and relaxation of airway smooth muscle.
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"Thank you for the quality care you provide to our PICU patients. Yesterday you were a wonderful leader in a stressful situation, your honest and supportive feedback continues to make me a better nurse as we sort out these ever changing ways we care for our PICU COVID kids."
