CHORI Celebrates 50th Anniversary with March Research Symposium
Now an Oakland landmark in the beautifully restored University High School Building at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Plaza, Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, once comprised of a mere handful of scientists, has emerged as a jewel of Children’s Hospital – and a vision of what research, at its best, can truly be.

CHORI invites you to join us on Wednesday March 31, 2010, for a celebration of our journey from a 5-employee laboratory to a multi-million-dollar enterprise that currently ranks 5th in the nation for National Institutes of Health pediatric research funding.

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CHORI Scientist Involved in Development of New DNA Library
The prairie vole looks a lot like your typical hamster, but unlike other rodents, or even other species of vole, the prairie vole displays a variety of unique behavioral traits, such as monogamy and biparental care of offspring. As a result, this little rodent has captured center stage as a model to understand the genetic and neurologic basis of a variety of social behaviors in both voles and humans.  However, research efforts have been limited by an overall lack of genetic resources – until now.

In a recent publication in Genomics, CHORI scientists Pieter de Jong, PhD, and his colleagues Boudewijn ten Hallers, PhD and Maxim Koriabin report the first-time development of a prairie vole bacterial artificial chromosome library that lays the groundwork for cutting edge research into the genetic basis of social behaviors.

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“When looked at individually, the many studies of saturated fat intake show quite a bit of variability. When analyzed as a whole, however, a significant association of saturated fat intake with increased risk of heart disease or stroke was undetectable,” says Dr. Krauss.

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Preventing Vaccine-Acquired Rotavirus in Immunocompromised Patients
CHORI clinical scientist Ann Petru, MD, has contributed to an article just published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) that documents significant safety concerns for children with undiagnosed severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) who are vaccinated against rotavirus infection. A world-wide endemic, rotavirus is a virus that causes diarrhea in many children and has caused 5 million deaths in the last 10 years alone, representing a significant global health burden.

“Rotavirus diarrhea can be very severe, especially in young children.  It affects such a huge proportion of the population in many countries, about 40 percent of kids in Malawi, for example.  The rotavirus vaccine, made from live but attenuated viruses, is really critical worldwide,” says Dr. Petru. “It can save the lives of about 2 million kids.”

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