NEONATOLOGY
EVERY
1,300+
Neonates treated per year
#4
Department of Neonatology
as ranked by U.S. News &
World Report
1 of 11
Centers worldwide
recognized at the platinum
level from the Extracorporeal
Life Support Organization
LEADERSHIP:
Randall Wilkening, MD
Chief, Neonatology,
The Lenore T. Stoddart-
La Cache Endowed Chair
in Neonatology
For neonatology healthcare
professional resources, visit
childrenscolorado.org/NeonateHCP.
LETTER
OF THE GENOME
The first whole genome
sequencing took 15 years. For a
growing number of centers around
the country, that timetable is down
to less than a week. That’s good
news for some of the hospital’s
sickest neonates.
About 20 percent of the newborns admitted to
Children’s Hospital Colorado’s Neonatal Intensive
Care Unit have no diagnosis to explain their need
for intensive care. That’s not unusual for a Level IV
NICU, especially not at a regional treatment hub
for the rarest and highest-risk conditions. But for
many of those infants, every hour is crucial.
“In the past we’ve looked at chromosomes under
the microscope or maybe sent a panel of genes for
testing,” says geneticist Austin Larson, MD. “But
those can take a couple of weeks to get back.”
“And sometimes you don’t find anything,” says
neonatologist Cassidy Delaney, MD. “Then you go
back to the drawing board.”
For a newborn with, say, rapidly progressing organ
failure, the drawing board could be deadly. By the
time another panel goes out and comes back, it
might be too late.
“Now we’re going all the way,” says Dr. Larson.
“We’re looking at every single letter of the genome.”
At around 3 billion base pairs, a whole genome
represents a daunting amount of information.
The first successful sequencing, the Human
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NEW CONSTELLATIONS
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