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Intermountain Healthcare
SALT LAKE CITY Utah researchers are seeking young volunteers from newborns to teenagers for what’s being called the world’s largest pediatric DNA mapping study to help prevent, identify, treat and even cure often fatal genetic diseases.
“By collecting genetic material from children, we change their fate. Genes, to a large extent, predict how healthy people are going to be,” Dr. Marc Harrison, Intermountain Healthcare president and CEO, told reporters Wednesday while announcing the “HerediGene: Children’s Study.”
The effort to examine the genetic makeup of 50,000 children, a collaboration between Intermountain Healthcare, University of Utah Health and Primary Children’s Hospital, is part of a larger genetic study announced in mid-2019 that involves 500,000 participants.
Babies can get COVID-19 antibodies from mothers while in the womb, study finds
By Stephanie Weaver
There is still limited data about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines for women who are pregnant.
LOS ANGELES - A new study shows that COVID-19 antibodies a key element to immunity and protection from the coronavirus can be transferred from a pregnant women to the infant during pregnancy, supporting the prospect that a mother’s antibodies could be protecting their infant and baby still in the womb from COVID-19.
The cohort study, published on Jan. 29 in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), studied more than 1,400 women and their newborns in Philadelphia between April and August of 2020.
Sexual assault reported on University of Utah campus Pat Reavy
SALT LAKE CITY University of Utah police are investigating a sexual assault on campus.
The victim was walking on campus sometime between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Wednesday to meet someone when two men “approached from behind a dumpster and proceeded to sexually assault the victim,” according to a prepared statement from the university.
The assault was reported to police by a University of Utah Health worker just after midnight Thursday. The victim is not affiliated with the university, according to the school.
Other details such as where on campus the attack occurred or descriptions of the attackers were not immediately available.
Intermountain Healthcare announced today a massive study conducted in partnership with deCODE genetics that invites children and families to voluntarily provide DNA samples to Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital. Through its collection of 50,000 DNA samples, “HerediGene: Children’s Study” aims to utilize the DNA of children ranging from newborns to infants to help researchers discover cures for genetic disorders and to help children with these disorders access needed treatment.
According to Dr. Joshua Bonkowsky, professor of pediatrics at the University of Utah Health and director of the Primary Children’s Center for Personalized Medicine, the study the world’s largest DNA mapping endeavor for children ever done began in December but was officially announced to the public today. He says the study will have both short-term and long-term beneficial impacts for children with genetic disorders.