About the Sanford Children's Health Research Center
I have the utmost confidence that this collaboration will promote
solutions to some of the most troubling health issues that affect
children.
- Denny Sanford
Naming donor and Honorary Trustee
The Sanford Children's Health Research Center is a collaboration between
Sanford Health in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Sanford-Burnham in La Jolla, California. These sister sites combine expertise in basic science, clinical research, and state-of-the art technology to conquer diseases affecting children, such as type 1 diabetes, congenital heart disease, muscular dystrophy, congenital disorders of glycosylation, hypophosphatasia, and multiple hereditary exostoses. Scientists in this center are also studying RNA biology, chemical biology, and stem cells to better understand how these diseases develop and how they might be prevented or treated. Their achievements include the first successful
treatment for hypophosphatasia; the first successful
treatments for some types of congenital disorders of glycosylation; the first chemical
agonists of HNF4, a molecular switch that controls generation of insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells, providing a new path forward for future treatment of juvenile diabetes; discovery that the adult pancreas contains residual stem cells capable of being converted into insulin-producing beta cells; identification of chemicals that convert stem cells into heart cells and advanced pre-clinical applications of those cells for addressing heart disease; and discovery of non-coding RNAs involved in AIDS pathogenesis, revealing new therapeutic strategies for HIV.
Learn more about our children's health research in the following fields: