Phoenix Children’s Hospital Leadership Circle awarded four grants totaling $523,424 during a May 26 virtual presentation. The online event was hosted and produced by Carey Peña of Inspired Media 360. Zach Ferres served as the moderator.
Moderator Zach Ferres and Carey Peña
Each year in the spring, Leadership Circle members have the opportunity to hear researchers, physicians, nurses and other hospital innovators present their cases for support to the group. Members then vote to determine which projects to fund and how their funds will be prioritized.
“These deserving grant recipients were selected based on their proposals presented to the Leadership Circle members,” says Dana Jirauch, senior director of philanthropy at Phoenix Children’s Hospital Foundation. “Even COVID-19 couldn’t stop this year’s finalists from presenting their innovative ideas, albeit via a different format online, in order to keep the momentum going and the opportunity for our Leadership Circle members to view and vote for the projects they wanted to fund this year.”
The 2020 PCH Leadership Circle directors included co-chairs Clarissa and Brian Robinson, as well as Julia and Taylor Burke, Carol and Dr. Charles Dries Jr., Jennifer and Rich Jewell, Charli Morrow and Jerry Schwalbach, and DeeDee and Ken Vecchione.
The grants selected by the Leadership Circle members to be funded include:
Project Title: Pulmonary Function Following Lung Resections in Infancy and Early Childhood
Principal investigator: Ramin Jamshidi, MD, pediatric surgeon
Project Title: Pediatric traumatic brain injury and hypothalamic-pituitary disorders in Arizona: A prospective pilot study
Principal investigators: Alona Sukhina, resident, and Oliver Oatman, DO, endocrinologist
Co-investigators: Alona S. Sukhina; Kara S. Lewis, MD; Rachel K. Rowe, PhD; Danielle Brown; Chirag Kapadia, MD; J. Bryce Ortiz, PhD; P. David Adelson, MD; and Jonathan Lifshitz, PhD
Project Title: Novel Approaches to assess the gut microbiome and other biomarkers in pediatric gastrointestinal conditions
Principal investigator: Brad Pasternak, MD, clinical associate professor of pediatrics
Co-investigators: Dr. Todd Sandrin, PhD; Dr. Peter Jurutka, PhD; and Dr. Gary Silber
Project Title: Nonfibrotic Conductive Implantable Biomaterials for Pacemaker Electrode Coating
Principal investigator: Edward Rhee, MD, director, electrophysiology
Co-investigators: Mehdi Nikkhah, PhD (ASU), and Mohamad Alaeddine, MD, cardiothoracic surgery, Phoenix Children’s Hospital
PHOTO COURTESY PHOENIX CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL LEADERSHIP CIRCLE
