Collaborative Pediatric Critical Care Research Network - Clinical Site

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT – Children’s National Hospital
Discovery of new therapeutic approaches to save the lives and improve the recovery of children with critical
illnesses can have profound effects on the child, the family and the overall health care system. In the past
decades, studies – often from a single center or a small number of centers - have led to intriguing hypotheses
that may result in benefits for a wide number of conditions. However, fully testing these putative therapies has
been hampered by an inability to enroll adequate number of subjects, mobilize sufficient trained personnel to
conduct the study and garner enough resources to fully answer the question. Children’s National Hospital (CNH)
is enthusiastic to join the new Collaborative Pediatric Critical Care Network (CPCCRN) to perform the innovative
studies for children with multiple organ failure after sepsis.
CNH has been proud to be a part of the 3 previous CPCCRN cycles starting in 2004. As a clinical center with
over 4000 ICU admissions each year while serving a diverse community in the Washington/Maryland/Virginia
region, we stand uniquely poised to enroll subjects in innovative clinical studies. By including children from our
center, from our ancillary site (Children’s Hospital of Richmond [CHoR]) and the other 22 sites within this new
CPCCRN, sufficient numbers of children will be available for enrollment and ensure the generalizability of the
findings. We bring an experienced research team to this new project. Our PI team is experienced at research,
specialists in neurological and cardiac critical care and leaders at CNH. In these capacities, they will identify and
support young investigators to participate in CPCCRN activities while also ensuring the success of the project(s)
within CPCCRN. The PIs have been deeply involved with the preliminary studies that have led up to the
proposed studies of personalized medicine to treat children with multiple organ failure. We believe this novel
approach will finally advance the field past the hurdle of only being able to use “supportive” care for such patients
and lead to substantial improvements in overall function, quality of life and family functioning. Moreover, we
believe that new, funded projects can be brought into CPCCRN by investigators within our center to make further
advances in the field of pediatric critical care.

Grant Number: 5PL1HD105462-05
NIH Institute/Center: NIH
Principal Investigator: MICHAEL BELL