Vaccines

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…

Myopericarditis After COVID-19 Vaccination
Myopericarditis After COVID-19 Vaccination 1024 683 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

A meta-analysis of international studies offers more detailed insight into the severity and outcomes of vaccine-related myopericarditis in the adolescent and young adult population. Concerns over myopericarditis and other cardiovascular complications in teens and young adults have gained considerable media attention. While myopericarditis-related data have been well characterized in adults with and without vaccination, the…

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…

Risk for Serious Complications From Vaccine-Preventable Infections After Hematopoietic Cell Transplant
Risk for Serious Complications From Vaccine-Preventable Infections After Hematopoietic Cell Transplant 1024 683 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Clinician-scientists reveal the burden of vaccine-preventable infections among children post-transplant, when immunity is low and risk is high. When a hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) recipient at Nationwide Children’s Hospital was diagnosed with a vaccine-preventable infection (VPI), treating clinicians decided to evaluate the burden of VPI in HCT patients at Nationwide Children’s and elsewhere. The team…

9 Facts About the COVID-19 Vaccine
9 Facts About the COVID-19 Vaccine 1024 683 Abbie Miller

COVID-19 is a disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In the United States, three vaccines are approved for emergency use, those produced by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson (J&J). These vaccines dramatically reduce your risk of getting severely ill or dying from COVID-19. The vaccines are also being shown to reduce the spread of…

How Has the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Measles Vaccination Rates?
How Has the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Measles Vaccination Rates? 1024 575 Mary Bates, PhD
Toddler playing with toys

Researchers are concerned about declining vaccination rates in the Nationwide Children’s Hospital pediatric primary care network. One consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic is that more families are putting off their children’s preventive care visits, causing pediatric providers to worry about missed vaccines. In a recent study published in Pediatrics, researchers at Nationwide Children’s evaluated changes in…

Quality Improvement Study Shifts HPV Vaccine Initiation to Earlier Age
Quality Improvement Study Shifts HPV Vaccine Initiation to Earlier Age 150 150 Aimee Swartz, MPH

A QI project shows that it is feasible, and possibly beneficial, to routinely administer HPV vaccine at age 9. It is feasible, and possibly beneficial, to routinely administer the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine beginning at age 9 — two to three years earlier than currently recommended — according to findings from a recent study conducted…

Needle-free Immunization Prevents Experimental Otitis Media
Needle-free Immunization Prevents Experimental Otitis Media 1024 575 Tiasha Letostak, PhD
Close up, color image of someone extending a gloved hand with a small patch face up on their pointer finger that resembles a circular adhesive bandage that has a smaller, blue square patch on its center

The first data to demonstrate the efficacy of a simple, needle-free vaccine delivery system for middle ear infections. Otitis media (OM), or middle ear infection, accounts for approximately 30 million doctor visits a year in the U.S. The pathogen nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHI) causes the majority of cases of ear infection, including chronic OM, recurrent OM, and…

How Can We Increase the HPV Vaccination Rate?
How Can We Increase the HPV Vaccination Rate? 150 150 Michael T. Brady, MD

Cancer is a terrifying diagnosis for a patient to receive or a doctor to give. So it would make sense that a vaccine proven to prevent cancer would be welcomed by everyone. The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine could prevent 28,500 HPV-related cancer cases – cervical, vaginal, vulvar, anal, rectal, penile and oropharyngeal – each year. The Centers…

The Collapse of Biofilms?
The Collapse of Biofilms? 1024 575 Jeb Phillips
Illustration showing the precise pattern of a biofilm - a perfect, 3D matrix

Scientists are working to eliminate the causes of countless chronic and recurrent human infections. Before the discoveries that could lead to biofilm eradication, before the idea that he was even working on treatments for the bacterial communities that are crucial to most human infections, Steven Goodman, PhD, had a mystery on his hands. For nearly 15 years. Dr. Goodman, then a biochemist…

Common Infections Associated With Childhood Stroke
Common Infections Associated With Childhood Stroke 150 150 Kevin Mayhood

Routine vaccinations appear to be protective. Minor infections, including the common cold, appear to trigger arterial ischemic stroke (AIS) in children, an international study shows. At the same time, a full or nearly full regimen of childhood immunizations appears to be protective in children. The research, published in the journal Neurology, also indicates long-suspected cold medicines don’t…

Researchers Describe Molecular Switch Controlling “Chameleon” Bacteria
Researchers Describe Molecular Switch Controlling “Chameleon” Bacteria 150 150 Abbie Miller

Closing the gap on developing a vaccine for middle ear infections. Researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and Griffith University’s Institute for Glycomics in Australia have discovered groundbreaking evidence that will help vaccine developers in their search for a vaccine against multiple infections of the respiratory tract, including middle ear infections. The research, published today in Nature…