Latest news with #CHLA
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Beloved Hallmark Movie Actress, 45, Shares Update on Family Health Crisis
Nikki DeLoach is one of the Hallmark channel's fan-favorite stars, and her movies always bring people so much joy, hope, and all the warm fuzzies. She has a knack for making you fall in love with each and every character she plays through her genuine nature, which clearly echoes her off-screen persona as well. DeLoach is very active on social media, and she hasn't been shy about sharing her personal struggles on Instagram. Some fans might not realize that her son, Bennett, 8, suffers from heart issues, which require regular trips to the hospital each year for check-ups on his condition. Here's a post she shared from 2023: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Nikki DeLoach (@nikdeloach) Yesterday, she shared another heartfelt update on his ongoing health crisis on Instagram, after a trip to Children's Hospital of Los Angeles. She started the post off with, "Every six months, Bennett and I make our way to @childrensla for his heart check-up. I have a routine. Morning prayers. I cover myself with every item that gives me strength." She also said, "... these healthcare professionals are actual heroes. We literally cannot live without them." See DeLoach's full update on her son here. Luckily, as DeLoach explained, all checked out okay for Bennett on this visit: "Bennett's heart check-up was uneventful which is exactly what you pray for. 'Heart holding strong. No intervention needed yet.' Any mama who has been in a health crisis with their child prays for the 'uneventful.' And we could not be more blessed and grateful." Plenty of well wishes poured in for DeLoach and her son, including from fellow Hallmark stars. Ashley Williams said, "You blow me away. ❤️❤️," and actor Cameron Mathison added heart emojis as well. Fans also sent kind words to DeLoach, with one saying, "Amazing ❤️ As someone who has gone through heart surgeries myself, this hits home. Always grateful after every check up to hear my doctor say all is well. Blessings to you all!"Another added, "Warrior Bennett, Warrior Mama, Warriors of CHLA!!! They are needed, and they press on toward the miracles. Thank you for being strong and for soldiering on. We need the miracles of you all every day." It's so wonderful to hear that Bennett got a good report, and we can only imagined how relieved DeLoach must be. She's an incredible mom of an incredible kid! 🎬SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox🎬 Beloved Hallmark Movie Actress, 45, Shares Update on Family Health Crisis first appeared on Parade on May 27, 2025
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
ScaleReady awards multiple G-Rex® Grants to leading investigators at the University of Southern California (USC) and the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA)
ST. PAUL, Minn., May 14, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- ScaleReady, in collaboration with Wilson Wolf Manufacturing, Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ: TECH) and CellReady announced today three G-Rex Grants that have been awarded to faculty members at the University of Southern California (USC) and the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA). The funding totaling $1,025,000 will support the translation of various cell and gene therapy initiatives into the clinic. Dr. Mohamed Abou-el-Enein, Executive Director of the USC/CHLA Cell Therapy Program and Founding Director of the cGMP Facility, received a $300,000 G-Rex Grant to further support the development of a novel non-viral manufacturing platform for CAR-T cell therapies. Initially funded by the INFR5 Grant from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), this additional support will help accelerate and enhance the platform's progress. "After extensive evaluation, we've identified the G-Rex system as the platform of choice for establishing an efficient, scalable, and cost-effective CAR-T manufacturing process that supports both my lab and our clients within the GMP facility. The system enables high-yield cell expansion, robust scale-up, and impressive consistency within a compact footprint. By integrating this platform, we are advancing our mission as a center of excellence in CAR-T manufacturing and delivering practical solutions for teams bringing cell therapies to patients," said Mohamed Abou-el-Enein M.D., Ph.D. Dr. Saul Priceman, Founding Director of the Keck School of Medicine of USC/ USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center for Cancer Cellular Immunotherapy Research (CCCIR), received a $275,000 G-Rex Grant for the development of a G-Rex based CAR-T cell process to advance a novel clinically-active CAR-T cell therapy into a Phase 1/2 clinical trial for the treatment of metastatic solid cancers. The laboratory is also investigating viral and non-viral engineering strategies that will be adapted using the G-Rex platform, which will address current cell manufacturing bottlenecks and help expand preclinical and clinical research efforts. "While our clinical experiences to date have used more conventional cell manufacturing platforms, we are excited about translating our new cellular immunotherapies using the G-Rex production system across the USC and CHLA campuses," said Saul Priceman, Ph.D. Dr. Shahab Asgharzadeh, Director of the Neuroblastoma Basic and Translational Program at CHLA, received a $250,000 G-Rex Grant to support late-stage preclinical development of a novel Chimeric TGFB Signaling Receptor (CTSR) Enabled Anti-B7H3 CAR-T cell therapy in children and Adolescent and Young Adults (AYA) with Recurrent Solid Tumors. This program is supported by an existing CIRM CLIN1 Grant. Dr. Preet Chaudhary, Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Nohl Division of Hematology and Center for Blood Diseases in the Department of Medicine, received a $200,000 G-Rex Grant for the process development and IND submission of a novel Synthetic Immune Receptor (SIR) engineered T cell therapy for the treatment of solid tumors. This program is supported by a CIRM TRAN1 Grant. "USC and CHLA have assembled a world-class team of innovators in the cell therapy field with the intent of making significant contributions to the cell and gene-modified cell therapy (CGT) field. We are impressed by the thoroughness of their CGT manufacturing selection process and having G-Rex selected as the platform to support their current and future clinical plans is an honor," said John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Wolf and co-inventor of G-Rex. ScaleReady's G-Rex Grant Program is advancing the state of CGT development and manufacturing by awarding individual Grant Awards worth up to $300,000. With nearly 200 grant awards already made and over 50 new applications in queue, the G-Rex Grant Program has been extended with millions of dollars in additional funding. G-Rex Grant Recipients also gain access to exclusive support from ScaleReady's growing consortium of G-Rex Grant Partners who bring best-in-class tools and technologies as well as unparalleled knowledge and expertise in the areas of cGMP manufacturing, quality and regulatory affairs, CGT business operations, and more. For more information about the G-Rex® Grant Program, please contact info@ About ScaleReadyScaleReady provides the field of cell and gene-modified cell therapy (CGT) with a G-Rex centric manufacturing platform that enables the world's most practical, flexible, scalable, and affordable CGT drug product development and manufacturing. The G-Rex manufacturing platform is currently used by a rapidly growing list of over 800 organizations and is producing drug products for approximately 50% of CGT clinical trials as well as 5 commercially approved CGT drugs. CGT entities relying on the breadth and scope of ScaleReady's expertise can expect to save years of time and millions of dollars on the path to CGT commercialization. For more information about the ScaleReady G-Rex® Grant Program, please contact info@ About Wilson Wolf ManufacturingWilson Wolf ( is dedicated to simplifying cell and gene-modified cell (CGT) therapy research, process development, and manufacturing. This is being accomplished through its scalable G-Rex technology, which is used throughout the world in CGT applications ranging from basic research to commercial drug production. Wilson Wolf's mission is to create hope for cancer patients, one G-Rex® device at a time. About Bio-Techne CorporationBio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ: TECH) is a global life sciences company providing innovative tools and bioactive reagents for the research and clinical diagnostic communities. Bio-Techne, in partnership with Wilson Wolf, is creating products such as media and cytokines that are specifically tailored to G-Rex® Bioreactors, including right-sized reagent quantities in containers that are tailored to high throughput closed-system manufacturing. For more information on Bio-Techne and its brands, please visit or follow the Company on social media at: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube. Contact: David Clair, Vice President, Investor Relations & Corporate About CellReady LLCCellReady is the world's first and only G-Rex centric contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) specializing in G-Rex based cell and gene-modified cell therapy development and manufacturing. The company offers a wide range of services to support the development and commercialization of these therapies. CellReady's mission is to create hope for cancer patients, one G-Rex® process at a time. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Bio-Techne Corporation Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Business Wire
07-05-2025
- Health
- Business Wire
Children's Hospital Los Angeles Leads Development of First Machine Learning Tool to Predict Risk of Cisplatin-Induced Hearing Loss
LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--An international research team led by Etan Orgel, MD at Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) has developed a novel machine learning model that can predict an individual child's risk of developing hearing loss from the chemotherapy drug cisplatin. The team, which includes researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC and other institutions across the U.S. and Canada, is the first to develop and validate a novel machine learning model for this purpose. The tool, called PedsHEAR, uses routine, readily available information to quickly predict this risk—with 95% confidence. Results were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology , and the model is now available for public use. Cisplatin has been used since the late 1970s to treat a variety of cancers and is highly effective against pediatric solid tumors in the brain and spinal cord, as well as neuroblastoma and rhabdomyosarcoma. Yet, cisplatin is well known to cause devastating side effects. In children, the most common side effect following therapy is debilitating, permanent hearing loss. A decades-long journey to personalize care The study grew out of two decades of efforts to prevent cisplatin-induced hearing loss in children. Investigators from CHLA led the pivotal phase 3 Children's Oncology Group trial of sodium thiosulfate (STS), and in 2022, the Food and Drug Administration approved STS as the first treatment to reduce the risk of hearing loss in children given cisplatin. But patients' treatment regimens are already highly complex, and some may not need STS to prevent hearing loss. For those who are not eligible for STS, it's critical for clinicians to understand each patient's risk and what options they have to protect that child's hearing. 'We want to give families and providers the tools they need to understand their child's risk and make an informed decision,' explains Dr. Orgel, who directs Quality and Patient Safety at CHLA's Cancer and Blood Disease Institute. 'This is the paradigm shift we're aiming for—speaking in certainties for each child versus speaking in generalities by regimen.' This new predictive model is informed by a landmark study designed and led by Dr. Orgel in 2021. Researchers analyzed data from more than 1,400 cisplatin-treated patients across the United States and Canada to establish the first benchmarks for the prevalence of cisplatin-induced hearing loss in children and adolescents. Researchers used the 1,400-person dataset as the foundation for the PedsHEAR model, training it to analyze risk factors and probabilities and accurately predict a child's risk level for hearing loss. The researchers also brought in two new, real-world data sets from the Children's Oncology Group and a children's hospital in Texas to validate the model in other populations. The now publicly available web model provides each patient with a percentage indicating the child's individual probability of hearing loss. Creating a new treatment planning standard 'My goal is for this to become a routine clinical tool,' says Dr. Orgel. 'What's unique about this model is that it only uses routinely available data, so any doctor can use it from day one of diagnosis to plan treatment.' He adds, 'Ultimately, we aim to expand our approach to understand and predict risk for other common side effects of common chemotherapies. 'We want to equip all patients beginning their cancer journey with knowledge that supports meaningful discussions with their doctors on what to expect during and after treatment.' The research team's next goal is to expand the model to young adults and adults up to 65 and to integrate genomics to make the model's output even more precise. About Children's Hospital Los Angeles Founded in 1901, Children's Hospital Los Angeles is at the forefront of pediatric medicine and is the largest provider of hospital care for children in California. Children's Hospital is home to renowned experts who work together across disciplines to deliver inclusive and compassionate care, and drive advances that set pediatric standards across the nation and around the globe. Children's Hospital Los Angeles delivers a level of care that is among the best in the world for a truly diverse population of children. The hospital is consistently ranked in the top 10 in the nation on U.S. News & World Report's Honor Roll of Best Children's Hospitals. CHLA is the top-ranked children's hospital in California and the Pacific U.S. region for 2024-25. Children's Hospital Los Angeles embraces the hospital's mission to create hope and build healthier futures. Children's Hospital Los Angeles is among the top 10 children's hospitals for National Institutes of Health funding. The Saban Research Institute of Children's Hospital Los Angeles supports the full continuum of research, allowing physicians and scientists to translate discoveries into treatments and bring answers to families faster. The pediatric academic medical center also is home to one of the largest training programs for pediatricians in the United States. And the hospital's commitment to building strong communities is evident in CHLA's efforts to fight food insecurity, enhance health education and literacy, and introduce more people to careers in health care. To learn more, follow CHLA on Facebook , Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and X , formerly known as Twitter, and visit
Business Wire
22-04-2025
- Health
- Business Wire
Children's Hospital Los Angeles Launches First-of-its-Kind Sleep App and Sleep Registry for Children Using Apple Watch
LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) is launching the first sleep registry in the country for children using Apple Watch as well as a new data collection app called WISE-HARE, or Wearable Intelligent Sensor Enhancement Home Apnea Risk Evaluation. The app was developed to gather streams of high-fidelity data for future research, such as training machine learning algorithms from Apple Watch data to detect sleep disorders and provide crucial information to clinicians that inform patient care decisions. 'There are not enough pediatric sleep study beds in the country, which inevitably results in delayed care for children. In looking into solutions to solve this, it was clear that no application currently on the market would give us the immense amount of raw data needed to properly conduct sleep studies on children at home without specialized equipment,' says Eugene Kim, MD, Principal Investigator and Chief of the Division of Pain Medicine in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine. 'At Children's Hospital Los Angeles, we are always looking to pioneer the latest research and innovations with the goal of advancing the standards of pediatric care. We developed a custom app with graduates from Apple's Developer Academy in Fortaleza, Brazil, who supported the integration of Apple technologies including HealthKit. This will allow us to create a first-of-its-kind sleep registry, which will be used to train machine learning algorithms from Apple Watch data to detect sleep disorders and inform clinicians on the need for ICU (Intensive Care Unit) admissions following surgery.' Polysomnography (PSG) studies, in which patients are admitted to the hospital overnight and numerous sensors are placed on the patient while they sleep, are the gold-standard test for assessing sleep and are essential in the diagnosis of sleep disorders such as sleep apnea. They are often needed to assess anesthetic risk before procedures, to help clinicians evaluate the risk of complications post-surgery. However, these tests are costly, have significant waitlists, and require children to sleep in an unfamiliar environment at the hospital, which can lead to different results than a child sleeping comfortably at home. To launch this new registry, CHLA is enrolling children ages 5-18 years old currently scheduled for a PSG study. Enrolled participants will use the WISE-HARE app and wear an Apple Watch, in addition to the standard PSG sensors. Results from the PSG and Apple Watch devices over the next year will be used to train machine learning algorithms to detect high-risk sleep disorders, with the ultimate objective of providing patients and families with the ability to screen for these high-risk sleep disorders at home without the need for special equipment. 'It was important that the benefits of our research would be made accessible for all patients. For this to happen, we needed a device that was comfortable to wear, commercially available, and didn't require special training to operate,' adds Dr. Kim. 'Apple Watch is a device that many children and their parents are already familiar with. The latest version met our requirements for a platform that allows us to collect and manage enormous amounts of data efficiently and securely.' Throughout the course of a typical eight-hour sleep test, WISE-HARE will amass over 30 million lines of data per patient. As home to the Virtual Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (vPICU), a data hub for providers in pediatric intensive care units worldwide, CHLA and its team of data scientists are among the few in the country with the expertise and infrastructure required to manage this data. 'The WISE-HARE app has the potential to help alleviate the delays and frustrations caused by the national shortage of pediatric sleep study beds in the coming years,' says Emily Gillett, MD, pulmonologist and sleep medicine specialist at CHLA. 'The Sleep Center and Sleep Laboratory at Children's Hospital Los Angeles were among the first in the country to focus exclusively on sleep disorders in children, so it's very fitting that our team at CHLA is pioneering this new sleep monitoring technology with the potential to streamline care for pediatric sleep patients.' The registry was funded by The Robert J. Coury Family Foundation. WISE-HARE will be accessible as open-source software and made available to researchers. About Children's Hospital Los Angeles Founded in 1901, Children's Hospital Los Angeles is at the forefront of pediatric medicine and is the largest provider of hospital care for children in California. Children's Hospital is home to renowned experts who work together across disciplines to deliver inclusive and compassionate care, and drive advances that set pediatric standards across the nation and around the globe. Children's Hospital Los Angeles delivers a level of care that is among the best in the world for a truly diverse population of children. The Hospital is consistently ranked in the top 10 in the nation on U.S. News & World Report's Honor Roll of Best Children's Hospitals. CHLA is the top-ranked children's hospital in California and the Pacific U.S. region for 2024-25. Children's Hospital Los Angeles embraces the hospital's mission to create hope and build healthier futures. Children's Hospital Los Angeles is among the top 10 children's hospitals for National Institutes of Health funding. The Saban Research Institute of Children's Hospital Los Angeles supports the full continuum of research, allowing physicians and scientists to translate discoveries into treatments and bring answers to families faster. The pediatric academic medical center also is home to one of the largest training programs for pediatricians in the United States. And the hospital's commitment to building strong communities is evident in CHLA's efforts to fight food insecurity, enhance health education and literacy, and introduce more people to careers in health care. To learn more, follow CHLA on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and X, formerly known as Twitter, and visit
CNN
10-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
Dr. Robby from ‘The Pitt' is the TV hero we need right now
Dr. Michael 'Robby' Robinavitch is the doctor you want standing over you in an emergent situation – calm-mannered, determined, with soulful eyes and a good looking beard. He may be a fictional character on a scripted television show, but the hype around this golden-hearted physician serving on the frontlines in a Pittsburgh emergency room on Max's 'The Pitt' is very real. 'I'll say from a fan girl, I think he exudes this quiet, calm sincerity,' Dr. Janet Semple-Hess, an emergency department doctor at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, told CNN of the character played by actor Noah Wyle. 'Not only is he knowledgeable, but he cares and he wears that care on his face. You can see the care and what's going on in his mind. We all have those days where we have those faces, too.' Semple-Hess will retire after 33 years of service at the end of April. The weight of stepping back was made even more emotional when the cast of 'The Pitt,' including Wyle, recently visited CHLA during their Make March Matter campaign, which raises money for the hospital. In a social media video that went viral, Semple-Hess can be seen in tears meeting the actor. A post shared by Children's Hospital L.A. (@childrensla) 'I would watch ('ER') when I was a young attending and full of a lot of energy and hope for the world and the desire to do good,' she said. 'And now, after 33 years, this is kind of the end for me. It's not the end for Noah Wyle by any means!' When she first watched Wyle on TV in his breakout role on 'ER,' where he played Dr. John Carter for 15 seasons, she was a first-year attending. As she saw Wyle's Carter grow from an intern into an expert physician, she too grew in her career. Watching Wyle as Robby, she said, has felt like something of a bookend to her career. She described the cast's visit as uplifting, because 'all those things kind of just bring a feeling of we're being seen.' 'Looking at the careers of emergency medicine physicians and how much they give and how much the ER nurses give, you can tell that the whole cast of 'The Pitt' give all that they've got every day,' she said. For a person in a medical emergency, nothing means more than having your concerns, worries and anxieties acknowledged by the person tasked with helping you. On 'The Pitt,' a harrowing show that doesn't censor the audience from the realities of emergency room medicine, the doctors — most of them, anyway — do exactly that. Robby, especially, sets a tone in his emergency room that values honor — honoring a patient's struggle, honoring the people left behind when tragedies take loved ones and honoring - if even for a moment - the emotional impact of losing a patient before the job requires you to quickly move on and help more. In one scene, amid a panic attack that leaves him pale and crumpled on the floor after a mass casualty event, Robby recites the Shema prayer, which in Jewish tradition is said in the morning and evening. In his darkest moment, he turned to his faith - though he has seen enough tragedy to openly question it. Earlier in the season, which ends with an episode that will be available for streaming on Thursday evening, Robby had his staff gather for what was called an honor walk, where they lined up to pay tribute to a patient whose parents agreed to donate his organs when the young man showed no signs of brain activity. 'I do think we're looking for a certain kind of humanity in people,' executive producer John Wells told CNN of why Robby has resonated as a character. 'Everything since Covid, everyone's very stressed and angry. There's lots going on. It's a very stressful time. And (Wyle) has this remarkable presence as an actor and as the character that I think you just want to walk into a hospital and hope that he's the doctor who walks through the door.' He added: 'That's a real testament to the way the character's written and to Noah's performance as the character.' Dr. Bradley Goldberg, who like Semple-Hess is an emergency room physician at CHLA, agreed, saying he connects with Robby's ability to juggle the action of the ER with authenticity. 'In the emergency department, we're experts at triage, so that's constantly what we're doing. We're triaging problems, triaging patients. And you can see Dr. Robby doing that on the show. He's being pulled in so many different directions all at once, and there's never an eye roll or like a sarcastic sigh,' he said. 'You can see it in his eyes, when someone needs his attention and he feels bad that maybe he can't be there in that moment, whether it's just a glance across the room or an acknowledgement. And I think we feel that in our work, too.' Much has also been said of 'The Pitt's' attention to real life issues – like hospital staffing shortages, anti-vaccine sentiment and every day dangers with horrible consequences. 'Sometimes there's a public service message in that all – let's prevent drownings or public safety or things like that. And they're very powerful messages for the people that watch the show,' Semple-Hess said. Goldberg called the show invaluable as an education tool, especially because of its accuracy. Goldberg doesn't watch a lot of medical shows. (Semple-Hess admitted she only watches 'The Pitt' on her days off. Otherwise, 'I come home and watch people selling houses and moving to interesting countries.') But 'The Pitt' – like 'ER' when he would stay home from school and watch endless reruns – is special, he said. Procedures are correctly depicted. The protocol is properly followed. Even the doses that are prescribed are appropriate for the situations, he said. More importantly, Goldberg said, the struggles faced by a 'safety net hospital,' are properly highlighted. 'You see, um, all walks of life coming through the doors – children, adults, the unhoused, the affluent, and that's our experience, as well,' he said. 'It's not a depiction of a glitzy surgical center in Miami. It's real life, and the challenges that we face every day.' To be seen and heard – it may not be a cure for every problem, but in crisis, it's certainly a step toward feeling better.
