PALO ALTO, Calif-- Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital pediatrician Gregory Barsh, MD, PhD, received the E. Mead Johnson Award for Research in Pediatrics at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in Seattle. The award, sponsored by Mead Johnson Nutritionals and given by the Society for Pediatric Research, honors clinical and laboratory research achievements in pediatrics. As the most recent winner, Barsh joins an impressive list of previous winners of the well-regarded award from Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.
 
"This is the most prestigious award in pediatric research," says Alan Krensky, MD, the Shelagh Galligan Professor of Pediatrics and a member of the award committee. Past recipients of the award include Irving Schulman, MD, former chair of pediatrics and Packard chief of staff; Ann Arvin, MD, chief of infectious disease at Packard Children's Hospital and the Lucile Salter Packard Professor of Pediatrics; Mark Kay, MD, PhD, professor of pediatrics and genetics; and Krensky himself. The award is given to two scientists nationally each year.
 
"I am both thrilled and surprised to be selected for the award, because there are so many great scientists doing pediatric research," says Barsh, a professor of pediatrics and genetics at Stanford’s School of Medicine. Barsh received the award for his application of a model genetic system based on mouse pigmentation to problems in human disease.
 
"It’s increasingly understood that genetics are extremely important, particularly in childhood diseases," says Krensky. "Dr. Barsh has used a common trait—the hair color of mice—to define basic principles of genetics that will lead to better understanding congenital genetic diseases."
 
Barsh’s most recent research finding, published in the Jan. 31 issue of Science, linked a mutation called mahoganoid, which changes the hair color of laboratory mice from brown to black, to the development of small holes in the brain that resemble those that develop during prion disease. The research marked the first time that such spongiform degeneration was linked to a defect in protein degradation and lent further support to the growing notion that glitches in protein turnover may be the unifying element in many neurodegenerative disorders.
 
Barsh and this year’s other winner, Val Sheffield, MD, a geneticist at the University of Iowa, each received a $10,000 honorarium, a plaque, and travel expenses to the meeting where they presented a short talk to the audience about their research.
 
In addition to garnering awards, Packard Children's Hospital physicians also do their fair share—and then some—in assuming national leadership roles in pediatric academic societies. Here are just a few examples:

• Dan Bernstein, MD, co-director of the Children's Heart Center and chief of the division of pediatric cardiology at Packard Children's Hospital, is the current president of the Society for Pediatric Research.
  
  
• Phyllis Dennery MD, director of neonatal research, is the secretary/treasurer of the Society for Pediatric Research.
  
  
• David Stevenson, MD, chief of neonatology, is the program committee chair of the Pediatric Academic Societies’ Annual Meeting. Stevenson also serves as a council member for the American Pediatric Society.
  
  
• Michael Link, MD, chief of pediatric hematology/oncology, is the associate chair of the Children’s Oncology Group.
  
  
• Alan Krensky MD, chief of pediatric immunology and transplantation biology and co-director of Packard’s new center to study primary immune deficiencies, is a past president of the Society for Pediatric Research.

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Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford is a 240-bed hospital devoted entirely to the care of children and expectant mothers. Providing pediatric medical and surgical services associated with Stanford University Medical Center, Packard offers patients locally, regionally and nationally the full range of health-care programs and services from preventive and routine care to the diagnosis and treatment of serious illness and injury.  To learn more about Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, please visit our Web site at www.lpch.org.