Steele Children’s Research Center
The mission at the University of Arizona Steele Children’s Research Center is to teach, to heal, and to discover. Our physician-scientists and researchers are passionately dedicated to improving children’s health through basic, translational, and clinical research.
Building the Future of Pediatric Care, Research and Discovery
For nearly six decades, the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Arizona has been dedicated to improving the health and well-being of children through exceptional patient care, groundbreaking research and the education of future healthcare leaders. From its community-driven beginnings to the nationally recognized Steele Children’s Research Center, our department has built a legacy of innovation, collaboration and advocacy that continues to shape pediatric medicine across Arizona and beyond.
Today, we stand at an exciting moment of growth and transformation. Guided by a strategic vision developed through faculty collaboration, community partnerships and philanthropic support, we are focused on expanding access to specialized pediatric care, advancing cutting-edge research and strengthening our impact throughout the region. Emerging initiatives such as a comprehensive autism center and a precision medicine and genomics hub, along with investments in research excellence and clinical innovation, will help ensure that every child and family has access to the highest quality care and the promise of tomorrow’s discoveries. Together with our advocates, donors, volunteers and community partners, we are building a healthier future for Arizona’s children.
Research Areas
Our division includes subspecialties such as fetal cardiology, electrophysiology, cardiac CT and MRI imaging, as well as an adult congenital cardiology program. We are growing a robust and collaborative interventional program providing transcatheter valve replacements, transcatheter PDA stenting procedures in neonates and complex adult congenital heart interventions. Congenital heart defects (CHD) are the most common of all birth defects. Through improvements in care, 90% of pediatric CHD patients are expected to reach adulthood, though CHD requires lifelong preventive care. Our clinician-scientists and research faculty conduct a wide array of clinical research aimed at improving the lives of those born with CHD or who have developed a heart problem during childhood.
Our faculty are committed to innovative pediatric research that improves the quality and delivery of critical pediatric care. Through investigator-led and sponsored projects, we’re ensuring that the pediatric population of southern Arizona is well-represented in the most impactful projects shaping our field.
Our scientists are exploring ways to better understand Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes to predict, prevent and better treat this chronic disease. Our pediatric endocrinologists are also exploring ways to better understand and treat hormone conditions affecting children.
Our scientists investigate gastrointestinal, liver, pancreatic and nutritional disorders, including inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, eosinophilic esophagitis, eosinophilic gastroenteritis and other autoimmune disorders. They have examined topics as varied as the effect of curcumin on colon cancer, potential preventive treatments for bone loss in people with irritable bowel disease, and looked for links between inflammation and aging.
Our scientists are conducting a wide array of clinical studies to find new and better ways to treat children, with a research focus on autism and other special needs. The division has grant funding from the National Institutes of Health, Arizona Department of Health Services, Arizona Biomedical Research Commission, Administration on Developmental Disabilities and more.
Our scientists are hard at work learning new ways to give the immune system the tools it needs to prevent and fight cancer. We’re evaluating novel therapies to improve outcomes following hematopoietic cell transplantation, investigating strategies to leverage the host immune system to eliminate cancer, and studying how exercise can enhance immune function to optimize responses against cancer. We’re also conducting clinical trials for children, adolescents and young adults with cancer and blood disorders through the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) and other organizations.
Our research focuses on quality improvement for infant outcomes. Two key scientific platforms are driving nutrition management strategies to impact maternal and infant outcomes and necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a painful inflammatory gastrointestinal disorder that afflicts approximately 9,000 premature infants annually. It is the most common GI ailment of premature babies, and approximately 20% to 40% do not survive this devastating disease. Our team hopes to develop the first predictive test for NEC and determine which common procedures and medications in the neonatal intensive care unit contribute to its development. Our intrauterine-drug-exposed infants are enrolled in Eat, Sleep and Console to reduce narcotic exposure and improve development.
Our researchers focus on how immune systems interact during pregnancy to influence the development of a child’s immunity. By treating a pregnant person’s allergic response, we hope to learn how to reduce a child’s risk for asthma and other allergies during pregnancy.
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