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FNNDSC Newsletter – May 29th 


Upcoming Center-Wide Events:

Spring Lecture Series Calendar:

Speaker: Andrea Gondova, PhD

Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Pediatrics, FNNDSC, Boston Children's Hospital 

Title: "From Typical Development to Neurodevelopmental Risk: Insights from Fetal MRI" 

Date: Wednesday, June 3rd, 10-11 AM, Hancock Conference Room


Speaker: Antonios Pouliopoulos, PhD

Associate Professor in Therapeutic Ultrasound, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences at King’s College London

Title: "Personalized therapeutic ultrasound for targeted drug delivery in diffuse midline glioma patients"

Date: Wednesday, June 10th, 10-11 AM, South Boston Conference Room


Speaker: Xin Tang, PhD

Assistant Professor, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School

PI, Interventional Neurogenomics Lab

Title: TBD

Date: Wednesday, July 1st, 10-11 AM, Hancock Conference Room


The FNNDSC Lecture Series will take a break in July and August for the Summer season, we will resume with speakers in September.

 

Speaker: Yangming Ou, PhD

Title: FNNDSC Seminar: NIH K Grant Discussion

Date: Tuesday, June 2nd, 12-1 PM, Hancock Conference Room

 

June Coffee Social:

Date: Wednesday, June 17th 10-11 AM, Hancock Conference Room

 

Postdoc Leaving Presentation:

Speaker: Kamran Salayev, MD PhD

Date: June 24th 11:15-12:15 PM, West Roxbury Conference Room

 

Upcoming Holidays: Holiday Schedule

Friday, June 19th – Juneteenth, FNNDSC will be closed  

Sunday, June 21st – Father’s Day

Friday, July 3rd – Independence Day observed, FNNDSC will be closed  

Happy Pride Month!

For everyone celebrating a significant holiday in June, we celebrate with you!

 

Conferences & Workshops:

 

Recent Center News:

Publications from our Team:

  • Yoshikawa MH, Yu M, Tatz J, Tran H, Feldman HA, Luviano AS, Grant PE, Sutin J, Warf BC, Lin PY. Cerebrospinal fluid volume outperforms traditional measures for predicting treatment failure in infant hydrocephalus. Read their work here.


  • Abaci Turk E, Gagoski B, Golland P, Grant PE. Recent innovations in placental MRI: Integrating visualization and functional imaging. Read their work here.


  • Cong, B., Xu, B., Chen, X., Ou, Y., Li, X., Liu, K., Zhang, S., Fu, C., Fan, J., Liu, Z., Jin, S., Li, G., Qi, Z., Hu, B., Kong, T., Zheng, Y., Kong, X.-J., & Long, J. (2026). Digital Therapeutics in Cancer Management and the emerging role of digital phenotyping. Read their work here.


  • Zhang, S., Liu, K., Shi, L., Yan, C., Wang, A., Liu, A., Guo, H., Xie, A., & Kong, X.-J. (2026). Development of a Metagenomics-Guided Personalized Synbiotic Protocol for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Exploratory Case Series.  Read their work here.


  • Penner F, Ahtam B, Ou Y, Grant PE, Lyons-Ruth K. Family protective service involvement and reduced infant cortical grey matter volume. Read their work here.

 

Kudos & Presentations From Our Team:


 

We are pleased to announce that Georgios Ntolkeras, MD, matched for the 2027 Pediatric Epilepsy Fellowship Program at BCH! Congratulations, Georgios, well deserved!

 

PAS

We had many FNNDSC Faculty, Fellows, and Research Staff attend the annual Pediatric Academic Society (PAS) meeting held in Boston, April 24-27th.


Ai-Wern Chung, PhD, gave an oral presentation titled, “Genetic contributions to altered brain connectivity in congenital heart disease”. This work was to determine the association between rare predicted loss-of-function or damaging de novo variants in constrained genes and the structural connectome in a CHD cohort. (Authors: Ai Wern Chung; Enrique Mondragon-Estrada; Jee Won Kang; Heather R. Adams; Evdokia Anagnostou; David C. Bellinger; Martina Brueckner; John D. Cleveland; Bruce D. Gelb; Elizabeth Goldmuntz; Donald J. Hagler Jr,; Hao Huang; Patrick McQuillen; Thomas A. Miller; Ami Norris-Brilliant; George A. Porter Jr; Nina H. Thomas; Madalina E. Tivarus; Wendy K. Chung; Jane W Newburger; P. Ellen Grant; Sarah U. Morton)



Filiz Yetisir, PhD, gave poster presentation titled, "Enhanced Fetal MRI Safety Assessment Through Incorporation of Realistic Fetal Motion,” (First Author).

Esra Abaci Turk, PhD, gave a poster presentation titled, “Quantitative MRI Assessment of Placental Volume in Complicated Monochorionic Twin Pregnancies Through Gestation,” (First Author).

Both Esra and Filiz also presented “Automatic segmentation of umbilical cord to aid fetal MRI safety assessment,” (First Author: Adi Titelman Ashkenazy, Co-Author: Esra Abaci Turk, Last Author: Filiz Yetisir).


Members of the Fetal MRI team at PAS
Members of the Fetal MRI team at PAS

Great job to all who represented the FNNDSC at PAS!

 

Rudolph Pienaar, PhD, attended the Red Hat Summit, the annual developer conference for Red Hat, in Atlanta, Georgia, May 11-14th. Rudolph was the speaker leading a round table discussion on "Exploring Agentic Strategies in Clinical Computing:  Real World Strategies for Using Non-Deterministic Methods in Areas Needing Determinism.”


Rudolph explains while LLMs are useful for processing unstructured text, using them to orchestrate complex processing steps ( i.e. using agents) has guaranteed errors. The more steps in an agentic chain, the larger the space of errors, ultimately this is unavoidable given the probabilistic nature of genAI. Given this, the group discussed various strategies recognizing that hallucinations can never be avoided, only mitigated.


Thanks for the takeaways, Rudolph!


ISMRM

We also had many FNNDSC Faculty attend the annual International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) meeting held in Cape Town, South Africa, May 9-14th.


Faculty members: Borjan Gagoski, Filiz Yetisir, and Ellen Grant along with MIT trainees
Faculty members: Borjan Gagoski, Filiz Yetisir, and Ellen Grant along with MIT trainees

Filiz Yetisir, PhD, gave a poster presentation titled, “Fetal SAR Variation Induced by Realistic Fetal Motion,” and an invited oral presentation titled, “Towards Subject-Specific SAR Management for Fetal MRI.” She was also elected secretary for the Governing Committee of the ISMRM MR Safety Study Group and joined the ISMRM Safety Committee as a member. Truly impressive accomplishments on the international stage!


Amazing work FNNDSC ISMRM attendees!

 

Funding Opportunities for Faculty and Fellows:

 Grant writing resources:

 

U.S. Immigration Resources:

Please check the Office of Immigration Services (OIS) page for regular updates and communication: Office of Immigration Services - Welcome!   

 

 

Studies Recruiting:

Dr. Borjan Gagoski and team are in search of participants for their study on Pediatric Edited MRS of the Brain. Please see details in the flyers below: 

 


Patient/Family Stories and Publications Sharing:

The Department of Newborn Medicine wants to stay informed about the exciting and impactful research happening in the FNNDSC. As part of this effort, the team is working to feature patient stories and publications that highlight both research and its clinical impact. If you have a project or publication that you feel would be a good fit for this effort, please reach out to caroline.schutz@childrens.harvard.edu with the details.

 

 Helpful Links:

FNNDSC Fun!

BCH Events & Involvement:

  • How to sign up for the Landmark Building Newsletter for updates on ARE events: Request An Account

  • Want to meet others with shared interests at BCH? Check out:


Workforce Wellbeing ELG feature for Mental Health Awareness Month!

As part of your health benefits, you have access to Rula, which makes it easier to connect with licensed therapists and psychiatric practitioners covered by your insurance. Appointments are available online, with many providers offering availability as soon as the next day.

Caroline Schutz, our Program Coordinator, is an active Workforce Wellbeing ELG member and worked the tabling event at the Main Hospital with Rula May 19th.  
Caroline Schutz, our Program Coordinator, is an active Workforce Wellbeing ELG member and worked the tabling event at the Main Hospital with Rula May 19th.  

June Pride Month Offerings - June is LGBTQ+ Pride Month


June 14, 2026 | DCR Hatch Shell | Rolling start begins at 9 a.m.

This is your opportunity to show your staff pride and join an incredible community of hospital employees, kids, families and supporters at the walk! 

 

Boston Events 🎆🎉🪩:

 

Way to Shine!🌟

Have you seen a teammate or colleague do something exceptional? Have they gone out of their way to exceed someone's expectations? Let them know that you noticed and that you care! To send a Way to Shine, please follow this link: Bravo! Way to Shine - Boston Children's Hospital (harvard.edu)

 

Brain Games 🧠 📝


HAVE SOMETHING TO SHARE?

If you have something that you would like to see featured in the next newsletter, please contact Caroline Schutz caroline.schutz@childrens.harvard.edu

 

 

 

 
 
 

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