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Pediatric Pulse February 2019: Spotlight On: Pediatric Scholars

February 24, 2019
by Lauren Perry

The Pediatric Scholar program is an investment in our best and brightest young investigators — very promising fellows who are identified by their mentors as the next generation of pediatric leaders. They are committed to a career in academic research (either laboratory-based or clinically-based) and would benefit from additional training and mentored research experience to enhance their abilities to compete for grant funding. This program allows them to receive from one to three years of additional training and mentored research.

Nina Brodsky, MD and Stephanie Prozora, MD were selected because of their commitment and their potential to become outstanding physician-scientists. The funds support their salary and benefits while they are getting this additional training.

Stephanie Prozora, MD attended medical school at the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. After obtaining her MD, she went on to complete her Pediatric Residency training at the Yale University School of Medicine in 2016. Dr. Prozora remained at Yale to continue her subspecialty training in Pediatric Hematology and Oncology which she will complete in June 2019. Her clinical interests include management of hematologic malignancies, benign hematology and coagulation, and palliative care. Dr. Prozora’s primary research interests are pediatric palliative and end-of-life care. Her current projects focus on examining patterns of utilization of medications, nutrition, and transfusions at the end-of-life with a goal of identifying ways to optimize the quality of care for pediatric patients with cancer.

The Pediatric Scholar program is an investment in our best and brightest young investigators — very promising fellows who are identified by their mentors as the next generation of pediatric leaders.

Nina Brodsky, MD is a Research Fellow in Pediatrics and Immunobiology. She received her MD from the University of Maryland, completed Pediatric residency training at The Children's Hospital at Montefiore, and Pediatric Critical Care fellowship at Yale New Haven Children's Hospital. Her research interests include the genetic and environmental etiologies of immunodeficiency and pathologic inflammation, as well as signaling and mechanisms of disease in patients with these conditions. She currently studies the role of senescent CD8 T cells in health and disease using a disease model that confers a state of increased CD8 T cell senescence, immune deficiency and pathologic inflammation, Activated PI3K-Delta Syndrome (APDS). Given the inflammatory phenotype of senescent cells, understanding these processes has important implications not only for APDS but also for chronic infection, inflammation and aging. Thus, this work will be impactful both basic and translational immunology.

Congratulations to Drs. Brodsky and Prozora!

Submitted by Lauren Perry on February 25, 2019