On November 3rd from 7:15pm-9:15pm, the NIH Common Fund’s Gabriella Miller Kids First Pediatric Research Program (Kids First) and INvestigation of Co-occurring conditions across the Lifespan to Understand Down syndromE (INCLUDE) will host a poster session at the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) 2023 meeting in Washington, DC.

The Kids First and INCLUDE programs are excited to host a joint poster session at the ASHG event. The goal of this poster session is to bring current Kids First and INCLUDE researchers together with a growing community of potential collaborators to foster collaboration and accelerate research discoveries of childhood cancer, structural birth defects and Down syndrome co-occurring conditions.

During this session, attendees will learn about Kids First childhood cancer, structural birth defects and INCLUDE Down syndrome whole genome datasets, progress of Kids First X01 cohort projects and INCLUDE cohort projects, tools and functionalities of the Kids First Data Resource Portal and INCLUDE Data Hub, and collaborations that can amplify the impact of Kids First and INCLUDE research efforts. The poster session is open to public and attendees are not required to register for the main ASHG meeting to attend the poster session.

If you would like to present a poster at this event, please register here and complete the poster submission form by October 1, 2023. For questions regarding the event, please email the Kids First Event Team.

In addition, we encourage ASHG attendees to visit the Gabriella Miller Kids First Data Resource Center (DRC) at booth #1332 and INCLUDE Data Coordinating Center (DCC) at booth #1334 to learn about the datasets available through the Kids First Data Resource Portal and INCLUDE Data Hub and how these programs support the goal of uncovering new insights into the biology of childhood cancer, structural birth defects and down syndrome.

Gabriella Miller Kids First Pediatric Research Program

Children with birth defects have an increased risk of developing childhood cancer, which suggests there are shared genetic pathways underlying some types of childhood cancer and structural birth defects. Elucidating the underlying genetic etiology of these diseases has the potential to profoundly improve preventative measures, diagnostics, and therapeutic interventions.

The Gabriella Miller Kids First Pediatric Research Program (Kids First) is a NIH effort initiated in response to the 2014 Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act and supported by the NIH Common Fund. The program’s vision is to alleviate suffering from childhood cancer and structural birth defects by fostering collaborative research to uncover the etiology of these diseases and supporting data sharing within the pediatric research community.

INCLUDE Project

The goal of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) INCLUDE Project is to improve the health and quality of life for people with Down syndrome (DS). People with Down syndrome develop certain medical conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease/dementia, autism, cataracts, celiac disease, congenital heart disease and diabetes, more often than the general population, yet they seem to be protected from some cancers and other common co-occurring conditions. In 2018, the NIH launched the INCLUDE Project to help understand why. The INCLUDE Project aims to study the root causes of co-occurring conditions experienced by people with Down syndrome. This research will also help others without Down syndrome who are affected by the same conditions. The INCLUDE Project funds researchers from many different fields. These researchers work closely with the Data Coordinating Center (DCC) to access the data and tools they need to speed up their research.

Both programs support researchers through the development of the Gabriella Miller Kids First Data Resource and INCLUDE Data Hub which are public-facing portals and cloud-based workspaces that enable searching, accessing, analyzing, and integrating genomic and associated phenotypic datasets alongside analytical tools to empower pediatric research.

Accelerating Pediatric Genomics Research: Networking Event & Poster Session