You Are What You Eat: A Review on Dietary Interventions for Treating Pediatric Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.

As the obesity pandemic worsens, cases of pediatric nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and complications of this disease, such as progressive liver failure, in young adults will continue to rise. Lifestyle changes in the form of dietary modifications and exercise are currently first-line treatments. Large pediatric-specific randomized controlled trials to support specific interventions are currently lacking.

Development and Utilization of a Diagnostic Support Tool for Asthma within the Electronic Medical Record.

Asthma in childhood is a common and costly chronic disease. Quality asthma care can lead to better control of asthma thus decreasing use of health services. The gold standard for pediatric asthma diagnosis and management is the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) guidelines for Diagnosis and Management of Asthma which center on precisely establishing the severity of asthma, as this precise classification delineates appropriate therapy.

Positive and negative selection during B lymphocyte development.

Our laboratory is interested in a variety of issues related to lymphocyte development. More specifically, we have focused on the processes that regulate the decision to commit to the B lymphocyte (B cell) lineage, then the subsequent signals that are involved in maintaining this commitment to the B cell lineage. These signals result in the positive selection of those B cells that properly execute the complex genetic changes associated with B cell development, then trigger the elimination of B cells that are responsive to self-antigens and, therefore, possess the potential to mediate autoimmune disease.

Definition of a novel cellular constituent of the bone marrow that regulates the response of immature B cells to B cell antigen receptor engagement.

Previously we defined a Thy1(dull) bone marrow-derived cell population that regulated fate decisions by immature B cells after Ag receptor signaling. The microenvironmental signals provided by this cell population were shown to redirect the B cell Ag receptor -induced apoptotic response of immature B cells toward continued recombination-activating gene (RAG) expression and secondary light chain recombination (receptor editing). Neither the identity of the cell responsible for this activity nor its role in immature B cell development in vivo were addressed by these previous studies.

Negative selection of immature B cells by receptor editing or deletion is determined by site of antigen encounter.

Immature B cells that encounter self-antigen are eliminated from the immune repertoire by negative selection. Negative selection has been proposed to take place by two distinct mechanisms: deletion by apoptosis or alteration of the antigen receptor specificity by receptor editing. While convincing evidence exists for each, the two models are inherently contradictory.