Eight federal departments and agencies nominated this year's PECASE winners. Gordon and Mandl were among 12 researchers nominated by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. John H. Marburger, science advisor to the President and director of the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy, presided over the awards ceremony.
Gordon, an attending physician in the Divisions of Adolescent Medicine and Endocrinology at Children's Hospital Boston, was awarded for her research on treatment of bone loss in adolescent girls and young women with anorexia nervosa. Bone loss afflicts many anorexic patients, putting them at risk for osteoporosis and fractures. Funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), Gordon is evaluating the effects of a new hormonal treatment on bone density in these patients.
The PECASE award also honors Gordon's community work on bone health in children in conjunction with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and as director of the Bone Health Center at Children's. She views anorexia as a model for understanding how nutrition and severe malnutrition affect bone health in other pediatric settings such as vitamin D deficiency, cystic fibrosis, and chronic steroid treatment for rheumatologic or inflammatory bowel disease.
"I'm thrilled that pediatric osteoporosis has been recognized," says Gordon, also an assistant professor of Pediatrics at
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Contact: Rachel Pugh
rachel.pugh@childrens.harvard.edu
617-355-6420
Children's Hospital Boston
14-Jun-2005