May 19, 2006

MGHer receives Young Clinician Research Award

Daniel S. Kohane, MD, PhD, a physician for the MassGeneral Hospital for Children's (MGHC) Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, recently was named by John A. Parrish, MD, director of the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (Cimit), as one of the recipients of the first CIMIT-Johnson & Johnson Young Clinician Research Awards. Intended to encourage physicians to create novel, life-saving medical devices and technologies, the award program was made possible through funding from Johnson & Johnson's Corporate Office of Science and Technology.

Kohane plans to use the award to support the development of a controlled-release technology that will prevent airway constriction problems in infants who have had breathing tubes. "Premature babies and other children who suffer injuries to their airways from breathing tubes or other causes often require repeated procedures to repair the damage," he says. "My team and I are hoping that the devices we are proposing to develop would prevent such injuries from occurring in the first place or would prevent their recurrence after surgery and could be administered by minimally invasive methods."