News & Updates

The NICHD has played a key role in the newborn screening activities and accomplishments of the last 5 decades and continues to lead and fund research activities related to newborn screening. As we mark the 50th anniversary of the dawn of the newborn screening era, the NICHD highlights some of its newborn screening research and accomplishments.

Understanding Down syndrome—its mechanisms, its effects on overall health, and ways to minimize its symptoms—has been an important part of the NICHD mission since it was established. The Institute is launching the DS-Connect®: The Down Syndrome Registry in an effort to create a centralized, secure national resource for storing and sharing health information about Down syndrome.

The National Institutes of Health has launched DS-Connect, a Web-based health registry that will serve as a national health resource for people with Down syndrome and their families, researchers, and health care providers.

Can sequencing of newborns’ genomes provide useful medical information beyond what current newborn screening already provides? Pilot projects to examine this important question are being funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), both parts of the National Institutes of Health.

The Division’s 2012 Annual Report highlights the extensive and comprehensive work of DESPR investigators and researchers.

At 7 months of age, children who are later diagnosed with autism take a split second longer to shift their gaze during a task measuring eye movements and visual attention than do typically developing infants of the same age, according to researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health.

During Trisomy Awareness Month in March, the NICHD joins other agencies and organizations in raising awareness about trisomy conditions and the challenges they may pose to individuals and families.

A clinical trial to evaluate a drug candidate called cyclodextrin as a possible treatment for Niemann-Pick disease type C1 (NPC), a rare and fatal genetic disease, will start on Wednesday, researchers announced today.

Researchers at Indiana University recently tested a three-dimensional computerized device to help train children with DCD to perform manual actions.

On December 5, 2012, the NICHD released the Scientific Vision: The Next Decade, the culmination of a collaborative process that began in 2011 to identify the most promising scientific opportunities for the Institute and the research community to pursue over the next decade. The Vision statement was made available during the NICHD’s 50th anniversary colloquium.

​Alan Guttmacher, M.D., Director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) announced a number of changes to streamline the institute’s organizational structure and accelerate the exchange of scientific ideas.

A document charting a research course for the many collaborators who share an interest in promoting the science concerning human development through the life span, child health, women's health, and rehabilitation research is now available online.

As the Institute marks its golden anniversary, we look back on the NICHD's early years, its scientific accomplishments, and its future.

​Mice with a condition that serves as a laboratory model for Down syndrome perform better on memory and learning tasks as adults if they were treated before birth with neuroprotective peptides, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health.

​The October 2012 NICHD Research Perspectives, the NICHD’s monthly podcast, is now online. The podcast features discussions of research of a study on a treatment to reduce the risk of preterm birth and the new Safe to Sleep campaign.

​Preterm births have fallen for the fifth straight year in a row, reported the National Center for Health Statistics of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in one of its recent National Vital Statistics Reports. This welcome decline was seen for all groups, and for each stage of pregnancy.

​The National Institutes of Health has announced grant awards of $100 million over five years for the Autism Centers of Excellence (ACE) research program, which will feature projects investigating sex differences in autism spectrum disorders, or ASD, and investigating ASD and limited speech.

​The National Institutes of Health is seeking proposals for research projects on the implications of information obtained from sequencing the genome to identify diseases in newborns. The intent of funding such projects is to further the understanding of disorders that appear during the newborn period and to improve treatments for these diseases.

​As they strive to develop new treatments for birth defects, or to prevent them, scientists at the National Institutes of Health have found a big ally in a small fish. An NIH video shows how the zebrafish, Danio rerio, is a valuable resource for scientists trying to understand the intricate process by which a fertilized egg develops into a fully formed individual, and the numerous diseases and conditions that can result when even a tiny part of the process goes wrong.

​Most children exposed to high levels of alcohol in the womb do not develop the distinct facial features seen in fetal alcohol syndrome, but instead show signs of abnormal intellectual or behavioral development, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and researchers in Chile.