Children’s Research Center supports translational work

Dr. Lyman is developing new understandings of pediatric disease development and therapies.

From his office at Children’s Hospital of Michigan, Dr. William Lyman is making dynamic connections by linking scientists with clinicians, university departments with medical center programs, researchers with funding agencies, and patients with medical expertise. As director of the newly established Children’s Research Center of Michigan, Dr. Lyman is organizing functional teams and leading researchers in the development of improved treatments, cures and perhaps even preventions for pediatric diseases.

The mission of the Children’s Research Center is to provide the infrastructure and resources necessary for translational research. It brings together physicians, statisticians, epidemiologists, and other scientists who will build on existing academic and scientific initiatives to make further discoveries into pediatric cancers, blood disorders, infectious diseases and the nervous system. "The center creates opportunities for scientific exploration and medical discoveries that will benefit children," said Dr. Lyman.

William Lyman, PhD, professor of pediatrics, said the original goal of the center was to raise $20 million over five years. Thanks to the generosity of many supporters who recognize the urgent need for research, more than $15 million has already been secured and new goals are currently being set. "The bulk of these funds will be used for internal grants and seed money," said Dr. Lyman. "By investing money in our own researchers initially, we hope to gather preliminary data which will lead to larger projects that may be funded by outside agencies."

Although funding opportunities are open to all types of translational research, the Children’s Research Center will have four centers of major programmatic emphasis: childhood cancer and blood diseases, neurosciences, cardiac science and general surgery.

In each of these categories, researchers hope to move swiftly through the processes of gene therapy, immunology, drug development, clinical assessment and developmental biology, as appropriate. "Our ultimate goal is always in the translational work," Dr. Lyman said. "The most critical requirement is this: The research must be related to childhood diseases. Quite simply, there must be compelling evidence that this will somehow benefit the health of kids."

Along these lines, the research center is establishing a clinical pharmacology program, which will test and formulate drugs for children. As Dr. Lyman says, "The drugs used for childhood diseases have never been tested appropriately for children. It is generally just assumed that adult dosages can be adjusted; however, children may tolerate and react to many drugs quite differently." Wayne State University/Detroit Medical Center will serve as the base for an international network of clinical pharmacology programs, which will work collaboratively on pediatric drug development.

The creation of an international cell bank is also underway at the research center to aid children who are waiting for bone marrow donors. Dr. Lyman and his colleagues are collaborating with researchers at a children’s hospital in Tel-Aviv, Israel, where Jewish, Moslem and Christian children from Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and other countries are having a difficult time finding donors. "Thirty percent of these kids will die waiting for a match," said Dr. Lyman. "But it’s truly remarkable what we will be able to do with the creation of a cell bank. Our hope is to create immediate matches for children with blood disorders and fatal diseases."

Many scientists and physicians have already received valuable support from the Children’s Research Center to develop potentially groundbreaking understandings of disease development and therapies. These researchers include Drs. Gyula Acsadi, Ricardo Gonzalez, Girija Konduri, Mary Lieh-Lai and Gail McCarver-May, among others. Support for these investigators is critical to the success of The Detroit Medical Center and the Wayne State University School of Medicine, says Dr. Lyman. "Our ultimate hope is to cure and, in fact, prevent these tragic childhood diseases."

Dr. Lyman developing gene therapies

Dr. Lyman received his master’s degree and PhD in pathology from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Prior to joining Wayne State, he was professor of pathology, neuroscience and ob/gyn at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. His research focuses on diseases of the nervous system, particularly pediatric AIDS and how the brain is affected at the cellular and molecular level. He is developing gene therapies to treat AIDS, cerebral palsy and prevention of sickle cell anemia in utero.

Dr. Lyman is currently funded by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Mental Health to study "Neural Cell Tropism of HIV Isolates." He is looking at potential alterations in nerve cell neurotransmitter signal transduction pathways. Specifically, he has three aims: the effect of HIV and its proteins on developing brain tissue, the role of cytokines in this pathology, and the effect of antibodies on viral proteins and host determinants that might contribute to the pathogenesis of neuro-AIDS.

Teaching by example, Dr. Lyman has already established interdisciplinary research partnerships with Wayne State University’s Dr. Robert Thomas in the Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics, Dr. Jack Lilien in biological sciences, and Dr. Gyula Acsadi in neurology. In addition, he’s developed a weekly journal club where interdisciplinary researchers meet to share information and findings.