Child Development – Leading Pediatrician Addresses the Future of Children's Health

By Colleen Hurley, RD, Certified Kid’s Nutrition Specialist

Dr. Jonathan D. Gitlan, MD, the Helene B. Roberson Professor at the Washington University School of Medicine discusses that researching the genetic code of infants while still in the womb may enable doctors to eventually prevent several diseases that plague adults.  This speech will be given as a keynote presentation at the Society for Biomolecular Science’s 14^th Annual Conference in St. Louis April 6-10.  Dr. Gitlan is also the director of the Children’s Discovery Institute, a St. Louis based research center dedicated to gaining a better understanding of childhood diseases.

Despite monetary investments in both the private and academic sectors, Dr. Gitlan points out that the current health status of our country is grim; particularly the health of our children.  "The amount of money currently dedicated to research that could identify key factors leading to diseases both in childhood and later in their adult lives is very small compared to the funding for adult onset diseases such as heart disease or cancer”, Dr. Gitlan states.  In addition, the pediatrician feels scientists need to focus their efforts on pinpointing and ultimately preventing diseases that may affect children later in their lives.

Another topic to be addressed in the speech is the human genome in respect to gaining an understanding of an individual’s genetic make up.  Dr. Gitlan points out that genetic sequencing has the potential to change the direction of both medical care and science by focusing on disease prevention.  Diseases genetically imprinted in an infant before birth may then be treated with long term intervention, small molecule alteration, or medications.  As many adult diseases are affected by lifestyle factors, doctors may be able to monitor food intake and environmental factors early on in a child’s life.

Controlling our environment may be difficult, but there is one thing we can control and that is nutrition.  Using zebra fish to illustrate his theory, Dr. Gitlan hopes to reveal that by manipulating nutrition we can understand how nutrition affects metabolism.  The findings of this research may ultimately reveal the precise genetic factors that define how nutrients are metabolized and how this process contributes to birth defects and other metabolic disorders.

 Resource:
Society for Biomolecular Sciences (2008, April 1). Leading Pediatrician Addresses The Future Of Children's Health. ScienceDaily. Retrieved