Featured Researchers

Featured Researcher – Ruoning Wang, PhD
Featured Researcher – Ruoning Wang, PhD 150 150 Alaina Doklovic

Ruoning Wang, PhD, is a principal investigator in the Center for Childhood Cancer for the Abigail Wexner Research Institute (AWRI) at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, a principal investigator for the Division of Hematology and Oncology at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and a professor in the Department of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Dr.…

Is Surfactant Treatment at Birth Associated With Severe Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia?
Is Surfactant Treatment at Birth Associated With Severe Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia? 1024 683 Pam Georgiana

An observational study reviews a contemporary cohort of preterm infants. Recently, Leif D. Nelin, MD, division chief of neonatology at Nationwide Children’s and a professor of pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, and a team of doctors in the Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia (BPD) Collaborative Registry speculated that the use of surfactant treatment in…

Featured Researcher – Mark Peeples, PhD
Featured Researcher – Mark Peeples, PhD 150 150 Alaina Doklovic

Mark E. Peeples, PhD, is a principal investigator and member of the Center for Vaccines and Immunity at The Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and a professor of Pediatrics and of Molecular & Cellular Biochemistry at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Dr. Peeples’ research focus is respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)…

Featured Researcher – Christopher Bartlett, PhD
Featured Researcher – Christopher Bartlett, PhD 150 150 Alaina Doklovic

Throughout Dr. Bartlett’s career, he has dedicated his time to the development of innovative statistical methods to enhance our understanding of childhood development, from pre-term birth to young adulthood. Specializing in the design and application of data analytic paradigms, his work significantly contributes to elucidating the complex interplay between environmental factors and childhood intrinsic characteristics.…

Featured Researcher: Henry Xiang, MD, MPH, PhD, MBA
Featured Researcher: Henry Xiang, MD, MPH, PhD, MBA 150 150 Alaina Doklovic

Dr. Henry Xiang is the founding Director of the Center for Pediatric Trauma Research of the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. He is also a tenured full professor at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. Dr. Xiang directs the Pilot Translational and Clinical Studies Program at the NIH-funded Ohio State University…

Featured Researcher – Jamie Jackson, PhD
Featured Researcher – Jamie Jackson, PhD 150 150 Alaina Doklovic

Jamie Jackson, PhD, is a principal investigator in the Center for Biobehavioral Health in the Abigail Wexner Medical Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, an assistant professor of Pediatrics and Psychology in the College of Medicine and Department of Psychology at The Ohio State University, and a licensed clinical health psychologist. Dr. Jackson attended graduate…

Featured Researcher – Rajan Thakkar, MD
Featured Researcher – Rajan Thakkar, MD 150 150 Alaina Doklovic

Rajan K. Thakkar, MD, FACS, is a pediatric surgeon, the Trauma Medical Director, and the co-Director of the Burn Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. He is an associate professor of Surgery and Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and is a principal investigator at the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences Research…

Featured Researcher – Elaine Mardis, PhD
Featured Researcher – Elaine Mardis, PhD 150 150 Alaina Doklovic

Elaine Mardis, PhD is co-Executive Director of the Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine (IGM) at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and holds the Rasmussen Nationwide Foundation Endowed Chair in Genomic Medicine. She is also a Professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Dr. Mardis is an internationally recognized expert in…

At the Heart of a First R01 Grant
At the Heart of a First R01 Grant 150 150 Alaina Doklovic

Allison Bradbury, MS, PhD, is a principal investigator in the Center for Gene Therapy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University. She recently received her first R01 grant to develop novel therapeutic strategies for tubulin folding cofactor D (TBCD)-related developmental and epileptic encephalopathy. This…

Innovations in Pediatric Cancer and Transplants: Q&A With Sara K. Rasmussen, MD, PhD
Innovations in Pediatric Cancer and Transplants: Q&A With Sara K. Rasmussen, MD, PhD 150 150 Pam Georgiana

Sara K. Rasmussen, MD, PhD, is a transplant and pediatric surgeon in the Department of Abdominal Transplant and Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery and an associate principal investigator in the Center for Clinical and Translational Research in the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. She earned both her medical and doctoral degrees from West Virginia University…

Featured Researcher – Rolf Stottmann, PhD
Featured Researcher – Rolf Stottmann, PhD 150 150 Alaina Doklovic

Rolf Stottmann, PhD, is a principal investigator in the Institute for Genomic Medicine at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and professor at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. He joined Nationwide Children’s in 2021. Dr. Stottmann has an unwavering interest in the genetics of structural birth defects. He is especially focused on structural brain malformations and…

Featured Researcher – Amrik Khalsa, MD
Featured Researcher – Amrik Khalsa, MD 150 150 Alaina Doklovic

Amrik Khalsa, MD, is a physician and principal investigator in the Center for Child Health Equity and Outcomes Research (CCHEOR) in the Abigail Wexner Research Institute (AWRI) at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. He is dual medically trained and board certified in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics and has research expertise in observational research design, community-engaged research, and…

Featured Researcher — Nilsa Ramirez, MD
Featured Researcher — Nilsa Ramirez, MD 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Nilsa Del Carmen Ramirez Milan, MD, director of the Biopathology Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, leads the biorepository team that receives about 1,000 new specimens each day. These must be processed and stored properly—together with the rest of the biobank’s > 6 million specimens. Then there is the outflow of samples provided for clinical analysis…

Featured Researcher — Katherine Bline, MD
Featured Researcher — Katherine Bline, MD 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Katherine Bline, MD, is a critical care medicine physician and principal investigator in the Center for Vaccines and Immunity at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Experience caring for some of the hospital’s sickest children in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) and mentors who pushed her to understand phenomena she observed clinically have helped Dr. Bline find…

Featured Researcher — Jeff Bridge, PhD
Featured Researcher — Jeff Bridge, PhD 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Jeff Bridge, PhD, director of the Center for Suicide Prevention and Research in the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, has been actively working to prevent suicide among at-risk youth since he was 19. Although he started as a volunteer, his career in suicide prevention and research has progressed considerably during his 36…

Featured Researcher — Meisam Naeimi Kararoudi, DVM, PhD
Featured Researcher — Meisam Naeimi Kararoudi, DVM, PhD 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Meisam Naeimi Kararoudi, DVM, PhD, director of the CRISPR/Gene Editing Core and principal investigator in the Center for Childhood Cancer Research at Nationwide Children’s, has taken a winding, international road to his current role at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. From his native Iran to Italy, England, Sweden and the United States, Dr. Naeimi Kararoudi has collected…

Featured Researcher — Eric Nelson, PhD
Featured Researcher — Eric Nelson, PhD 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Eric Nelson, PhD, is a principal investigator in the Center for Biobehavioral Health in the Abigail Wexner Research Institute (AWRI) at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. His work centers around how the brain develops, particularly during adolescence, as well as how it changes (or doesn’t) during periods of mental health symptoms, crises or therapeutic interventions. He collaborates…

Featured Researcher — Linda Baker, MD
Featured Researcher — Linda Baker, MD 150 150 Natalie Wilson

Linda Baker, MD, a renowned expert in prune belly syndrome (PBS), joined Nationwide Children’s as a research director and principal investigator in the Kidney and Urinary Tract Center and The Ohio State University as a clinical professor of Urology at the end of 2022. Dr. Baker has met, evaluated and cared for over 180 children…

Featured Researcher — Jonathan Slaughter, MD, MPH
Featured Researcher — Jonathan Slaughter, MD, MPH 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Jonathan Slaughter, MD, MPH, neonatologist and principal investigator in the Center for Perinatal Research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, works to identify best practices and reduce treatment variation to improve neonatal clinical care and outcomes. His career took off when, after casually observing practice variation across the institutions where he received training, he noticed that preterm…

Featured Researcher — Motao (Matt) Zhu, MS, MD, PhD
Featured Researcher — Motao (Matt) Zhu, MS, MD, PhD 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Motao (Matt) Zhu, MS, MD, PhD, serves as a principal investigator in the Center for Injury Research and Policy at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. After starting off his epidemiology studies in reproductive health, Dr. Zhu transitioned into injury research and has since become an internationally recognized expert in young driver…

Featured Researcher — Brenda Lilly, PhD
Featured Researcher — Brenda Lilly, PhD 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Brenda Lilly, PhD, a principal investigator in the Center for Cardiovascular Research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, examines the interactions between endothelial cells, which line the inside of blood vessels, and smooth muscle cells. Blood vessels play a critical role in a wide variety of diseases. As a basic biologist, Dr. Lilly studies the mechanisms involved…

Featured Researcher — Sarah O’Brien, MD
Featured Researcher — Sarah O’Brien, MD 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

The lab of Sarah O’Brien, MD, principal investigator in the Center for Child Health Equity and Outcomes Research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, operates at the intersection of hematology and women’s health. Dr. O’Brien, who also leads the Young Women’s Hematology Clinic at Nationwide Children’s, applies her interests in big data and epidemiology to increase recognition…

Featured Researcher — Allison Bradbury, MS, PhD
Featured Researcher — Allison Bradbury, MS, PhD 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Allison Bradbury, MS, PhD, is an accomplished principal investigator in the Center for Gene Therapy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, but her introduction to medical research and the field of rare neurologic diseases wasn’t at school — it was in her great uncle’s garage, when his work as a veterinary pathologist led him to identify an inherited…

Featured Researcher — Mitchel Stacy, PhD
Featured Researcher — Mitchel Stacy, PhD 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Mitchel Stacy, PhD, a principal investigator in the Center for Regenerative Medicine at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and assistant professor of Surgery at The Ohio State University, started his education with dietetics in mind. Finding his way instead to nuclear and molecular imaging of cardiovascular diseases, Dr. Stacy’s research blossomed during his postdoctoral fellowship and first…

Featured Researcher — Ashley Jackson, PhD
Featured Researcher — Ashley Jackson, PhD 150 150 Natalie Wilson

Ashley Jackson, PhD, is a principal investigator in The Kidney and Urinary Tract Center at Nationwide Children’s studying renal urothelium, the special surface tissue that lines most of the urinary tract, or the drainage system of the kidneys, to slow kidney disease progression in children with urinary tract obstruction (UTO), or a blockage that prevents…

Featured Researcher — Juhi Bagaitkar, PhD
Featured Researcher — Juhi Bagaitkar, PhD 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Juhi Bagaitkar, PhD, a principal investigator in the Center for Microbial Pathogenesis at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute (AWRI) at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, studies how immune cells and barrier epithelial cells (the cells that cover all internal and external surfaces in the body) protect their human “hosts,” interact with each other and fall prey to…

Featured Researcher — Diana Thomas, MD, PhD
Featured Researcher — Diana Thomas, MD, PhD 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Diana Thomas, MD, PhD, joined the Biopathology Center (BPC) at Nationwide Children’s Hospital as its pathology operations director in 2021. Since then, she has been busy supporting research protocol development and the receipt, processing, banking and distribution of biospecimens for clinical and research investigators around the world. As a biorepository for some of the largest…

Featured Researcher — Tracy Bedrosian, PhD
Featured Researcher — Tracy Bedrosian, PhD 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Tracy Bedrosian, PhD, is a principal investigator in the Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine and a specialist in brain mosaicism and neurodevelopment working to uncover the impact that localized mutations in brain cells have on epilepsy symptoms, autism and other neurodevelopmental diseases. She collaborates with neurologists and other experts in the Steve…

Featured Researcher — Will Ray, PhD
Featured Researcher — Will Ray, PhD 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

William C. Ray, PhD, is a principal investigator in the Battelle Center for Mathematical Medicine in the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and an associate professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University. His work focuses on unique ways to explore, visualize and communicate data using his background in fine arts, molecular…

Featured Researcher — Amit Kapoor, PhD
Featured Researcher — Amit Kapoor, PhD 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Amit Kapoor, PhD, joined Nationwide Children’s Hospital as a principal investigator in the Center for Vaccines and Immunity and The Ohio State University as an associate professor of Pediatrics in 2015. Dr. Kapoor’s lab is working to understand the immunopathogenesis of several viral pathogens that infect humans and animals. His lab is developing new animal…

Featured Researcher — Steve Goodman, PhD
Featured Researcher — Steve Goodman, PhD 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Steven D. Goodman, PhD, is a principal investigator in the Center for Microbial Pathogenesis in the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. His research centers on bacterial biofilms — interactive ecosystems of bacteria that form a structure to help the bacteria thrive and fight off threats. These biofilms can be found wherever bacteria…

Featured Researcher — Scott Harper, PhD
Featured Researcher — Scott Harper, PhD 150 150 Natalie Wilson

Scott Harper, PhD, is a principal investigator in the Center for Gene Therapy at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and a professor of Pediatrics at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. Dr. Harper’s primary research focus at Nationwide Children’s has been developing adeno-associated virus (AAV) based gene therapies to treat…

Featured Researcher — Rodney Britt, PhD
Featured Researcher — Rodney Britt, PhD 150 150 Natalie Wilson

Rodney D. Britt Jr., PhD, is a principal investigator in the Center for Perinatal Research at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and an assistant professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University. Dr. Britt earned his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from North Carolina A&T State University and his doctorate degree in…

Featured Researcher — Jennifer Muszynski, MD, MPH, FCCM
Featured Researcher — Jennifer Muszynski, MD, MPH, FCCM 150 150 Natalie Wilson

Jennifer Muszynski, MD, MPH, FCCM, a physician in the Division of Critical Care Medicine at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and an associate director of its fellowship program, is a principal investigator in the Center for Clinical and Translational Research in the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s. Dr. Muszynski’s research focuses on understanding how receiving…

Featured Researcher — Leena Nahata, MD
Featured Researcher — Leena Nahata, MD 150 150 Natalie Wilson

Pediatric endocrinologist Leena Nahata, MD, is the founder and medical director of the Fertility and Reproductive Health Program at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and a principal investigator in the Center for Biobehavioral Health at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s. Although fertility-related decisions can seem far away for children, adolescents and their families, many…

Featured Researcher — Genevieve Kendall, PhD
Featured Researcher — Genevieve Kendall, PhD 150 150 Natalie Wilson

Genevieve Kendall, PhD, is a principal investigator in the Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Diseases and an assistant professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Dr. Kendall and her lab focus on developing basic and translational models of pediatric sarcomas—devastating and aggressive solid tumors with limited treatment options. Specifically, they…

Featured Researcher — Mingtao Zhao, DVM, PhD
Featured Researcher — Mingtao Zhao, DVM, PhD 150 150 Natalie Wilson

Mingtao Zhao, DVM, PhD, is a principal investigator in the Center for Cardiovascular Research at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. He is also an assistant professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Dr. Zhao’s research aims to understand heart development and pioneer novel treatments for congenital heart…

Featured Researcher — Susan Creary, MD, MSc
Featured Researcher — Susan Creary, MD, MSc 150 150 Natalie Wilson

Susan Creary, MD, MSc, is a principal investigator in the Center for Child Health Equity and Outcomes Research at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, a physician in the Hematology, Oncology and Blood and Marrow Transplant (BMT) Clinic at Nationwide Children’s, and an associate professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University.…

Featured Researcher — Tendy Chiang, MD, FACS
Featured Researcher — Tendy Chiang, MD, FACS 150 150 Natalie Wilson

​​​​​​​Tendy Chiang, MD, FACS is a principal investigator in the Center for Regenerative Medicine at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. His work focuses on understanding how airway tissue repairs and regenerates itself and using that information to design tissue-engineered trachea. Tissue engineering is the process of seeding cells on a biodegradable scaffold or support…

Featured Researcher — Jingzhen Ginger Yang, PhD, MPH
Featured Researcher — Jingzhen Ginger Yang, PhD, MPH 150 150 Natalie Wilson

Dr. Jingzhen (Ginger) Yang, a principal investigator in the Center for Injury Research and Policy at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, has a national and international reputation as a leader in pediatric injury prevention research. Currently, Dr. Yang is directing three NIH-funded R01 studies, and her research focuses on two areas: improving sports-related concussion recovery among children and…