Taking the Lead in Pediatric Personalized Medicine

As home to the largest pediatric clinical pharmacology program in North America, Children’s Mercy has led the study of how medicines work in children for more than a decade.

Taking that knowledge one step further, we established the Center for Personalized Medicine and Therapeutic Innovation in 2008 as part of our initiative to integrate the advancements of genomic technologies and pharmacogenomics research directly into patient care. Through the efforts of translational teams, our clinicians and basic scientists are studying clinically significant medication-related problems and developing solutions that increase the safety and efficacy of medications we prescribe for children.

The Center for Personalized Medicine and Therapeutic Innovation serves as a ‘living laboratory. It enables us to test hypotheses about the utility and validity of using genomic information to improve diagnosis and the entire process of pharmacology and therapeutics. We can impact drug discovery through drug development, envisioning and validating how new medicines are used in the context of improved diagnostic precision to get the right medicine at the right dose to the right patient.

Children’s Mercy operates the only pediatric clinical pharmacology training program in the U.S. that is accredited by the American Board of Clinical Pharmacology. Over the next seven years, our goal is to train at least one pediatrician in each of the 28 subspecialties represented in our Department of Pediatrics. Graduates of the program will develop independent translational research programs in their subspecialty areas and, over time, will serve as mentors for the next generation of health care professionals.

We’re also working in partnership with medical professionals all over the world to advance this new branch of medicine. Gregory L. Kearns, PharmD, PhD, Chairman of the Department of Medical Research at Children’s Mercy, is the co-principal investigator for a newly created national initiative, the Pediatric Trials Network. We helped found the Consortium of Pediatric Hospitals within the Institute of Pediatric Innovation, an organization focused on developing improved medicines and devices to meet the therapeutic needs of children. And we lead the operational activities of the Institute’s Pediatric Drug Reformulation Program, which focuses on providing optimal forms and strengths of medications for safe and effective use in infants, children and teens.

Serving patients today and advancing the frontiers of knowledge for tomorrow, Children’s Mercy is leading the way in the field of pediatric personalized medicine.