infants
Studies Confirm COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines Safe, Effective for Pregnant Women
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Clinical trials have shown that COVID-19 vaccines are remarkably effective in protecting those age 12 and up against infection by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. The expectation was that they would work just as well to protect pregnant women. But because pregnant women were excluded from the initial clinical trials, hard data on their safety and efficacy in this important group has been limited.
So, I’m pleased to report results from two new studies showing that the two COVID-19 mRNA vaccines now available in the United States appear to be completely safe for pregnant women. The women had good responses to the vaccines, producing needed levels of neutralizing antibodies and immune cells known as memory T cells, which may offer more lasting protection. The research also indicates that the vaccines might offer protection to infants born to vaccinated mothers.
In one study, published in JAMA [1], an NIH-supported team led by Dan Barouch, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, wanted to learn whether vaccines would protect mother and baby. To find out, they enrolled 103 women, aged 18 to 45, who chose to get either the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna mRNA vaccines from December 2020 through March 2021.
The sample included 30 pregnant women,16 women who were breastfeeding, and 57 women who were neither pregnant nor breastfeeding. Pregnant women in the study got their first dose of vaccine during any trimester, although most got their shots in the second or third trimester. Overall, the vaccine was well tolerated, although some women in each group developed a transient fever after the second vaccine dose, a common side effect in all groups that have been studied.
After vaccination, women in all groups produced antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. Importantly, those antibodies neutralized SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern. The researchers also found those antibodies in infant cord blood and breast milk, suggesting that they were passed on to afford some protection to infants early in life.
The other NIH-supported study, published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, was conducted by a team led by Jeffery Goldstein, Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago [2]. To explore any possible safety concerns for pregnant women, the team took a first look for any negative effects of vaccination on the placenta, the vital organ that sustains the fetus during gestation.
The researchers detected no signs that the vaccines led to any unexpected damage to the placenta in this study, which included 84 women who received COVID-19 mRNA vaccines during pregnancy, most in the third trimester. As in the other study, the team found that vaccinated pregnant women showed a robust response to the vaccine, producing needed levels of neutralizing antibodies.
Overall, both studies show that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are safe and effective in pregnancy, with the potential to benefit both mother and baby. Pregnant women also are more likely than women who aren’t pregnant to become severely ill should they become infected with this devastating coronavirus [3]. While pregnant women are urged to consult with their obstetrician about vaccination, growing evidence suggests that the best way for women during pregnancy or while breastfeeding to protect themselves and their families against COVID-19 is to roll up their sleeves and get either one of the mRNA vaccines now authorized for emergency use.
References:
[1] Immunogenicity of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines in pregnant and lactating women. Collier AY, McMahan K, Yu J, Tostanoski LH, Aguayo R, Ansel J, Chandrashekar A, Patel S, Apraku Bondzie E, Sellers D, Barrett J, Sanborn O, Wan H, Chang A, Anioke T, Nkolola J, Bradshaw C, Jacob-Dolan C, Feldman J, Gebre M, Borducchi EN, Liu J, Schmidt AG, Suscovich T, Linde C, Alter G, Hacker MR, Barouch DH. JAMA. 2021 May 13.
[2] Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccination in pregnancy: Measures of immunity and placental histopathology. Shanes ED, Otero S, Mithal LB, Mupanomunda CA, Miller ES, Goldstein JA. Obstet Gynecol. 2021 May 11.
[3] COVID-19 vaccines while pregnant or breastfeeding. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Links:
COVID-19 Research (NIH)
Barouch Laboratory (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston)
Jeffery Goldstein (Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago)
NIH Support: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences; National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering
Targeting the Microbiome to Treat Malnutrition
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Credit: International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh
A few years ago, researchers discovered that abnormalities in microbial communities, or microbiomes, in the intestine appear to contribute to childhood malnutrition. Now comes word that this discovery is being translated into action, with a new study showing that foods formulated to repair the “gut microbiome” may help malnourished kids rebuild their health [1].
In a month-long clinical trial in Bangladesh, 63 children received either regular foods to treat malnutrition or alternative formulations for needed calories and nutrition that also encouraged growth of beneficial microbes in the intestines. The kids who ate the microbiome-friendly diets showed improvements in their microbiome, which helps to extract and metabolize nutrients in our food to help the body grow. They also had significant improvements in key blood proteins associated with bone growth, brain development, immunity, and metabolism; those who ate standard therapeutic food did not experience the same benefit.
Globally, malnutrition affects an estimated 238 million children under the age 5, stunting their normal growth, compromising their health, and limiting their mental development [2]. Malnutrition can arise not only from a shortage of food but from dietary imbalances that don’t satisfy the body’s need for essential nutrients. Far too often, especially in impoverished areas, the condition can turn extremely severe and deadly. And the long term effects on intellectual development can limit the ability of a country’s citizens to lift themselves out of poverty.
Jeffrey Gordon, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and his NIH-supported research team have spent decades studying what constitutes a normal microbiome and how changes can affect health and disease. Their seminal studies have revealed that severely malnourished kids have “immature” microbiomes that don’t develop in the intestine like the microbial communities seen in well nourished, healthy children of the same age.
Gordon and team have also found that this microbial immaturity doesn’t resolve when kids consume the usual supplemental foods [3]. In another study, they turned to mice raised under sterile conditions and with no microbes of their own to demonstrate this cause and effect. The researchers colonized the intestines of the germ-free mice with microbes from malnourished children, and the rodents developed similar abnormalities in weight gain, bone growth, and metabolism [4].
All of this evidence raised a vital question: Could the right combination of foods “mature” the microbiome and help to steer malnourished children toward a healthier state?
To get the answer, Gordon and his colleagues at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Dhaka, Bangladesh, led by Tahmeed Ahmed, first had to formulate the right, microbiome-friendly food supplements, and that led to some interesting science. They carefully characterized over time the immature microbiomes found in Bangladeshi children treated for severe malnutrition. This allowed them to test their new method for analyzing how individual microbial species fluctuate over time and in relationship to one another in the intestine [5]. The team then paired up these data with measurements of a set of more than 1,300 blood proteins from the children that provide “readouts” of their biological state.
Their investigation identified a network of 15 bacterial species that consistently interact in the gut microbiomes of Bangladeshi children. This network became their means to characterize sensitively and accurately the development of a child’s microbiome and/or its relative state of repair.
Next, they turned to mice colonized with the same collections of microbes found in the intestines of the Bangladeshi children. Gordon’s team then tinkered with the animals’ diets in search of ingredients commonly consumed by young children in Bangladesh that also appeared to encourage a healthier, more mature microbiome. They did similar studies in young pigs, whose digestive and immune systems more closely resemble humans.
The Gordon team settled on three candidate microbiome-friendly formulations. Two included chickpea flour, soy flour, peanut flour, and banana at different concentrations; one of these two also included milk powder. The third combined chickpea flour and soy flour. All three contained similar amounts of protein, fat, and calories.
The researchers then launched a randomized, controlled clinical trial with children from a year to 18 months old with moderate acute malnutrition. These young children were enrolled into one of four treatment groups, each including 14 to 17 kids. Three groups received one of the newly formulated foods. The fourth group received standard rice-and-lentil-based meals.
The children received these supplemental meals twice a day for four weeks at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research followed by two-weeks of observation. Mothers were encouraged throughout the study to continue breastfeeding their children.
The formulation containing chickpea, soy, peanut, and banana, but no milk powder, stood out above the rest in the study. Children taking this supplement showed a dramatic shift toward a healthier state as measured by those more than 1,300 blood proteins. Their gut microbiomes also resembled those of healthy children their age.
Their new findings published in the journal Science offer the first evidence that a therapeutic food, developed to support the growth and development of a healthy microbiome, might come with added benefits for children suffering from malnutrition. Importantly, the researchers took great care to design the supplements with foods that are readily available, affordable, culturally acceptable, and palatable for young children in Bangladesh.
A month isn’t nearly long enough to see how the new foods would help children grow and recover over time. So, the researchers are now conducting a much larger study of their leading supplement in children with histories of malnutrition, to explore its longer-term health effects for them and their microbiomes. The hope is that these new foods and others adapted for use around the world soon will help many more kids grow up to be healthy adults.
References:
[1] Effects of microbiota-directed foods in gnotobiotic animals and undernourished children. Gehrig JL, Venkatesh S, Chang HW, Hibberd MC, Kung VL, Cheng J, Chen RY, Subramanian S, Cowardin CA, Meier MF, O’Donnell D, Talcott M, Spears LD, Semenkovich CF, Henrissat B, Giannone RJ, Hettich RL, Ilkayeva O, Muehlbauer M, Newgard CB, Sawyer C, Head RD, Rodionov DA, Arzamasov AA, Leyn SA, Osterman AL, Hossain MI, Islam M, Choudhury N, Sarker SA, Huq S, Mahmud I, Mostafa I, Mahfuz M, Barratt MJ, Ahmed T, Gordon JI. Science. 2019 Jul 12;365(6449).
[2] Childhood Malnutrition. World Health Organization
[3] Persistent gut microbiota immaturity in malnourished Bangladeshi children. Subramanian S, Huq S, Yatsunenko T, Haque R, Mahfuz M, Alam MA, Benezra A, DeStefano J, Meier MF, Muegge BD, Barratt MJ, VanArendonk LG, Zhang Q, Province MA, Petri WA Jr, Ahmed T, Gordon JI. Nature. 2014 Jun 19;510(7505):417-21.
[4] Gut bacteria that prevent growth impairments transmitted by microbiota from malnourished children. Blanton LV, Charbonneau MR, Salih T, Barratt MJ, Venkatesh S, Ilkaveya O, Subramanian S, Manary MJ, Trehan I, Jorgensen JM, Fan YM, Henrissat B, Leyn SA, Rodionov DA, Osterman AL, Maleta KM, Newgard CB, Ashorn P, Dewey KG, Gordon JI. Science. 2016 Feb 19;351(6275).
[5] A sparse covarying unit that describes healthy and impaired human gut microbiota development. Raman AS, Gehrig JL, Venkatesh S, Chang HW, Hibberd MC, Subramanian S, Kang G, Bessong PO, Lima AAM, Kosek MN, Petri WA Jr, Rodionov DA, Arzamasov AA, Leyn SA, Osterman AL, Huq S, Mostafa I, Islam M, Mahfuz M, Haque R, Ahmed T, Barratt MJ, Gordon JI. Science. 2019 Jul 12;365(6449).
Links:
Childhood Nutrition Facts (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Gordon Lab (Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis)
International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research (Dhaka, Bangladesh)
NIH Support: National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; National Institute of General Medical Sciences; National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases; National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences; National Cancer Institute
Whole-Genome Sequencing Plus AI Yields Same-Day Genetic Diagnoses
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Back in April 2003, when the international Human Genome Project successfully completed the first reference sequence of the human DNA blueprint, we were thrilled to have achieved that feat in just 13 years. Sure, the U.S. contribution to that first human reference sequence cost an estimated $400 million, but we knew (or at least we hoped) that the costs would come down quickly, and the speed would accelerate. How far we’ve come since then! A new study shows that whole genome sequencing—combined with artificial intelligence (AI)—can now be used to diagnose genetic diseases in seriously ill babies in less than 24 hours.
Take a moment to absorb this. I would submit that there is no other technology in the history of planet Earth that has experienced this degree of progress in speed and affordability. And, at the same time, DNA sequence technology has achieved spectacularly high levels of accuracy. The time-honored adage that you can only get two out of three for “faster, better, and cheaper” has been broken—all three have been dramatically enhanced by the advances of the last 16 years.
Rapid diagnosis is critical for infants born with mysterious conditions because it enables them to receive potentially life-saving interventions as soon as possible after birth. In a study in Science Translational Medicine, NIH-funded researchers describe development of a highly automated, genome-sequencing pipeline that’s capable of routinely delivering a diagnosis to anxious parents and health-care professionals dramatically earlier than typically has been possible [1].
While the cost of rapid DNA sequencing continues to fall, challenges remain in utilizing this valuable tool to make quick diagnostic decisions. In most clinical settings, the wait for whole-genome sequencing results still runs more than two weeks. Attempts to obtain faster results also have been labor intensive, requiring dedicated teams of experts to sift through the data, one sample at a time.
In the new study, a research team led by Stephen Kingsmore, Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine, San Diego, CA, describes a streamlined approach that accelerates every step in the process, making it possible to obtain whole-genome test results in a median time of about 20 hours and with much less manual labor. They propose that the system could deliver answers for 30 patients per week using a single genome sequencing instrument.
Here’s how it works: Instead of manually preparing blood samples, his team used special microbeads to isolate DNA much more rapidly with very little labor. The approach reduced the time for sample preparation from 10 hours to less than three. Then, using a state-of-the-art DNA sequencer, they sequence those samples to obtain good quality whole genome data in just 15.5 hours.
The next potentially time-consuming challenge is making sense of all that data. To speed up the analysis, Kingsmore’s team took advantage of a machine-learning system called MOON. The automated platform sifts through all the data using artificial intelligence to search for potentially disease-causing variants.
The researchers paired MOON with a clinical language processing system, which allowed them to extract relevant information from the child’s electronic health records within seconds. Teaming that patient-specific information with data on more than 13,000 known genetic diseases in the scientific literature, the machine-learning system could pick out a likely disease-causing mutation out of 4.5 million potential variants in an impressive 5 minutes or less!
To put the system to the test, the researchers first evaluated its ability to reach a correct diagnosis in a sample of 101 children with 105 previously diagnosed genetic diseases. In nearly every case, the automated diagnosis matched the opinions reached previously via the more lengthy and laborious manual interpretation of experts.
Next, the researchers tested the automated system in assisting diagnosis of seven seriously ill infants in the intensive care unit, and three previously diagnosed infants. They showed that their automated system could reach a diagnosis in less than 20 hours. That’s compared to the fastest manual approach, which typically took about 48 hours. The automated system also required about 90 percent less manpower.
The system nailed a rapid diagnosis for 3 of 7 infants without returning any false-positive results. Those diagnoses were made with an average time savings of more than 22 hours. In each case, the early diagnosis immediately influenced the treatment those children received. That’s key given that, for young children suffering from serious and unexplained symptoms such as seizures, metabolic abnormalities, or immunodeficiencies, time is of the essence.
Of course, artificial intelligence may never replace doctors and other healthcare providers. Kingsmore notes that 106 years after the invention of the autopilot, two pilots are still required to fly a commercial aircraft. Likewise, health care decisions based on genome interpretation also will continue to require the expertise of skilled physicians.
Still, such a rapid automated system will prove incredibly useful. For instance, this system can provide immediate provisional diagnosis, allowing the experts to focus their attention on more difficult unsolved cases or other needs. It may also prove useful in re-evaluating the evidence in the many cases in which manual interpretation by experts fails to provide an answer.
The automated system may also be useful for periodically reanalyzing data in the many cases that remain unsolved. Keeping up with such reanalysis is a particular challenge considering that researchers continue to discover hundreds of disease-associated genes and thousands of variants each and every year. The hope is that in the years ahead, the combination of whole genome sequencing, artificial intelligence, and expert care will make all the difference in the lives of many more seriously ill babies and their families.
Reference:
[1] Diagnosis of genetic diseases in seriously ill children by rapid whole-genome sequencing and automated phenotyping and interpretation. Clark MM, Hildreth A, Batalov S, Ding Y, Chowdhury S, Watkins K, Ellsworth K, Camp B, Kint CI, Yacoubian C, Farnaes L, Bainbridge MN, Beebe C, Braun JJA, Bray M, Carroll J, Cakici JA, Caylor SA, Clarke C, Creed MP, Friedman J, Frith A, Gain R, Gaughran M, George S, Gilmer S, Gleeson J, Gore J, Grunenwald H, Hovey RL, Janes ML, Lin K, McDonagh PD, McBride K, Mulrooney P, Nahas S, Oh D, Oriol A, Puckett L, Rady Z, Reese MG, Ryu J, Salz L, Sanford E, Stewart L, Sweeney N, Tokita M, Van Der Kraan L, White S, Wigby K, Williams B, Wong T, Wright MS, Yamada C, Schols P, Reynders J, Hall K, Dimmock D, Veeraraghavan N, Defay T, Kingsmore SF. Sci Transl Med. 2019 Apr 24;11(489).
Links:
DNA Sequencing Fact Sheet (National Human Genome Research Institute/NIH)
Genomics and Medicine (NHGRI/NIH)
Genetic and Rare Disease Information Center (National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences/NIH)
Stephen Kingsmore (Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine, San Diego, CA)
NIH Support: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; National Human Genome Research Institute; National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
How Kids See the World Depends a Lot on Genetics
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Caption: Child watches video while researchers track his eye movements.
Credit: Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis
From the time we are born, most of us humans closely watch the world around us, paying special attention to people’s faces and expressions. Now, for the first time, an NIH-funded team has shown that the ways in which children look at faces and many other things are strongly influenced by the genes they’ve inherited from their parents.
The findings come from experiments that tracked the eye movements of toddlers watching videos of other kids or adult caregivers. The experiments showed that identical twins—who share the same genes and the same home environment—spend almost precisely the same proportion of time looking at faces, even when watching different videos. And when identical twins watched the same video, they tended to look at the same thing at almost exactly the same time! In contrast, fraternal twins—who shared the same home environment, but, on average, shared just half of their genes—had patterns of eye movement that were far less similar.
Interestingly, the researchers also found that the visual behaviors most affected in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)—attention to another person’s eyes and mouth—were those that also appeared to be the most heavily influenced by genetics. The discovery makes an important connection between two well-known features of ASD: a strong hereditary component and poor eye contact with other people.
Preeclampsia: Study Highlights Need for More Effective Treatment, Prevention
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Thinkstock
It’s well known that preeclampsia, a condition characterized by a progressive rise in a pregnant woman’s blood pressure and appearance of protein in the urine, can have negative, even life-threatening impacts on the health of both mother and baby. Now, NIH-funded researchers have documented that preeclampsia is also taking a very high toll on our nation’s economic well-being. In fact, their calculations show that, in 2012 alone, preeclampsia-related care cost the U.S. health care system more than $2 billion.
These findings are especially noteworthy because preeclampsia rates in the United States have been steadily rising over the past 30 years, fueled in part by increases in average maternal age and weight. This highlights the urgent need for more research to develop new and more effective strategies to protect the health of all mothers and their babies.
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