Science in the Service of Kids
Shaun, 13 Patient Ambassador See page 6
Mishika, 13 Patient Ambassador
Dear Friends,
Research is an important part of the Children’s Hospital Colorado mission as an academic medical institution. As national funding for pediatric research declines, the generosity of our community has played an integral role in supporting physician-scientists who care for patients and conduct research studies in our labs at the Colorado Child Health Research Institute on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.
Our research initiatives, fueled by donors like you, have enabled breakthroughs in understanding childhood diseases, developed innovative treatments and improved the quality of care for countless kids. Quite simply, research saves lives and enhances the quality of life for all children on healthcare journeys. Thanks to philanthropy, child health research has uncovered life-changing treatments for conditions such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease, and cancer. These are just a few examples of how your support leads to discoveries by our researchers.
There is still much to be done in the field of pediatric healthcare research. Our researchers have committed their careers to solving medical mysteries. They are nationally and internationally recognized for leadership in their respective fields, their unparalleled collaboration, and their scientific rigor. With your continued support, they can pursue even more ambitious research, acquire cutting-edge technology, and translate their discoveries into the best possible care for our patients, while also impacting global care for all children.
We envision a world where every child has the chance to live a healthy and vibrant life, free from the grip of devastating diseases. Together, we can transform the landscape of pediatric healthcare, saving countless lives and offering families the chance to see their children thrive. Thank you for your partnership in turning this vision into a reality.
If you have questions about our current research projects or would like more information on how you could support child health research, please contact Sharon McMeel, our Chief Development Officer, at smcmeel@childrenscoloradofoundation.org.
Jennifer Roe Darling President and CEO Children’s Hospital Colorado Foundation
Children’s Hospital Colorado Foundation inspires giving to Children’s Colorado by engaging donors in mission-aligned partnerships that are trustworthy and relationship focused. We raise funds that deliver innovative research, treatment and the best possible care across the human lifespan. We engage donors based on trust in the Foundation’s stewardship of dollars and by demonstrating philanthropic impact.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Loyal Volunteers Establish Endowed Fund
In 1982, longtime Children’s Hospital Colorado volunteer Lenore Stoddart founded La Cache, an antiques consignment shop at 400 Downing St., near where the first hospital was located. The store was created to generate revenue to benefit Children’s Colorado and is staffed by members of the hospital’s Association of Volunteers. Through consignment, the majority of sale proceeds go to the consignor and the remainder is donated to the hospital.
Over the last four decades, La Cache and our volunteers have made a tremendous impact, giving more than $6 million in net proceeds to support Children’s Colorado patients. These funds have established three endowed chairs:
The Lenore T. Stoddart – La Cache Chair in Neonatology held by Randall B. Wilkening, MD; The La Cache Critical Care Endowed Chair, held by Kurt Stenmark, MD; and The La Cache Endowed Chair for Gastrointestinal, Allergic and Immunologic Disease, held by Glenn Furuta, MD.
As if giving their time and talent weren’t enough, our volunteers have now gone one step further to establish the La Cache Patient and Family Endowed Fund through a recent $1 million gift. This new endowed fund will support family support services, social work and integrative and creative care areas across our network of care to ensure patients and families have the best experiences possible.
Looking for a place to consign items — or shop for antiques? Consider visiting La Cache at 400 Downing St. in Denver to support kids at Children’s Colorado.
Genetic Sequencing Provides Hope for Expectant Families
The Walter A. and Charlotte Soule Family Foundation has long been committed to supporting newborns and expectant mothers through their generous philanthropic support of the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and the Colorado Fetal Care Center (CFCC). Their investments have positively impacted the lives of countless babies and families throughout pregnancy and beyond, along with our care team.
The Soule Family Foundation’s recent gift of $2 million has established the Walter A. and Charlotte Soule Endowed Fund to increase access to Whole Exome Sequencing (WES) for pregnant mothers expecting babies with complex conditions. With the Soules’ investment, families can now access WES testing even if their health insurance will not cover the costs. WES provides a detailed examination of specific parts of the baby’s genetic code, known as exons. Exons help identify any genetic changes that could impact the baby’s health, such as inherited disorders and developmental issues. This information provides vital insights for maternal and fetal care, allowing for early intervention and a highly personalized treatment plan.
The Soule Family Foundation’s generosity will continue to improve long-term health outcomes and offer more answers around complex genetic conditions, making it possible — in perpetuity — for more families to access WES every year. Learn more about genetic sequencing on page 19.
Marriott Brings Their Hospitality to the Colorado Fetal Care Center
Today, the Colorado Fetal Care Center (CFCC) is home to dedicated maternal fetal medicine specialists and treats patients from 44 states, delivering more than 1,600 babies and completing more than 900 fetal surgeries in 2023.
Marriott Hotels has committed a $1 million gift to our CFCC, supporting research and treatment for our tiniest patients and growing families. To celebrate their generosity, Children’s Colorado will recognize Marriott in the CFCC Family Lounge, where families can enjoy a space of rest, respite, and hospitality.
Marriott Hotels has been a generous partner to Children’s Hospital Colorado Foundation for nearly 20 years as the presenting sponsor for Alice 104.5 Cares for Kids Radiothon, an active Children’s Miracle Network partner at the national level and longtime supporter of our Children’s Fund, which provides critical services for patients, families and staff at Children’s Colorado.
NEW CHAIRHOLDERS CONTINUE DONORS' LEGACIES
Children’s Hospital Colorado is pleased to announce the following clinicians have assumed endowed chairs:
John Wiersch, MD: Colorado Firefighters
Endowed Chair in Burn and Trauma Care
Pediatric Nursing
Jennifer (Jen) Roth, MSN, MBA, RN, NEA-BC: Dr. Dori Biester Chair in Pediatric Nursing
Colorado Fetal Care Center
Sarkis (Chris) Derderian, MD: The Sandy Wolf Chair in Maternal Fetal Surgery
Burn
Down Syndrome
Nicole (Niki) Baumer, MD, MEd: GLOBAL Chair for Down Syndrome at Children's Hospital Colorado
The Colorado Fetal Care Center Family Lounge provides a respite space for expectant families.
Emelia, 4, was diagnosed with a rare birth defect in utero at the Colorado Fetal Care Center.
Charlotte and Walter A. Soule
NEW Chair
Why I Give
Courage, Commitment and Gratitude
In 2002, Tom and Christine rushed their 11-year-old son Paul to Boulder Community Hospital because they were unable to control his persistent headaches and vomiting. What unfolded next would reshape their lives and create a lifelong connection to Children's Hospital Colorado.
After a CT scan, technicians told Paul’s parents to go directly to Children’s Colorado, bypassing even a quick stop at their home. At Children's Colorado, they were met by Ken Winston, MD, Chief of Pediatric Neurosurgery at the time.
Dr. Winston discovered a malignant brain tumor, and that night, Paul underwent urgent surgery performed by Dr. Winston and neurosurgeon Lori McBride, MD. During surgery, the doctors discovered the tumor was inoperable due to its proximity to critical brain structures, but their intervention alleviated Paul’s symptoms, setting the stage for a lifesaving journey through chemotherapy and radiation.
Rides of Courage
Despite his exhaustion from radiation somnolence syndrome, a rare side effect from cranial radiation, Paul committed to participating in the Courage Classic, a multi-day bicycle event to support Children’s Colorado, a few months after his treatment ended.
This marked the beginning of a 20-year tradition in which Paul and his family would ride in the Courage Classic and fundraise for the hospital, demonstrating the resilience and camaraderie that the event celebrates.
"There are so many stories like Paul's,” said Tom.
“It’s one of the reasons we participated in Courage Classic for so many years. You get to meet the families and learn about their stories all while giving back to Children’s Colorado.”
Once a Patient, Now a Doctor
Inspired by his healthcare journey, Paul dedicated himself to a career in health care. He trained as an emergency medical technician then worked in the emergency room at Children’s Colorado.
Later, Paul surprised his parents by announcing that he had passed a medical school exam and would be attending the University of Milan Statale in Italy. Today, he is in the second year of a five-year pediatrics residency.
“Even after 20 years, I am so grateful for the care, compassion and expertise of everyone who took care of me. The professionalism and dedication of the team were incredible, and I'm still thankful for the profound impact Children's Colorado has had on my life."
– PAUL LEMIEUX
Sharing Family Values
The family’s gratitude for the hospital is personal and profound. For Tom, giving back was an easy decision, and in addition to personal fundraising for many years, he has included Children’s Hospital Colorado Foundation in his will.
“I hope that my contributions can help save the lives of kids who have cancer and blood disorders. It feels good to know I’ve helped in some small way, helping to make the same kind of access available to other children and families who need Children’s Colorado."
“Giving
to organizations that you are passionate about is not just sharing your wealth with your community; it’s sharing your values. And you feel those values when you walk into Children’s Colorado.”
$4.6 Million Gift Secures Renowned Neurologist & Down Syndrome Expert
The Anna & John J. Sie Foundation and Global Down Syndrome Foundation (GLOBAL) have provided a visionary gift of $4.6 million to the Anna & John J. Sie Center for Down Syndrome at Children’s Hospital Colorado (Sie Center). The Sie Center is the largest pediatric medical care center for patients with Down syndrome in the U.S., providing specialty care to more than 2,500 patients from 26 states and 10 countries.
The generous donation includes a lead gift of $2.5 million that attracted nationally renowned child neurologist and Down syndrome expert, Nicole Baumer, MD, MEd, to helm the Sie Center. GLOBAL’s goal is to match the $2.5 million for the GLOBAL Endowed Chair for Down Syndrome at Children’s Hospital Colorado.
Dr. Baumer is a neurodevelopmental disabilities expert who has focused her career on the treatment of individuals with Down syndrome, autism, ADHD and other neurobehavioral disorders. Her research, funded by the National Institutes of Health, focuses on understanding neurodevelopmental profiles in Down syndrome and exploring interventions for neurodevelopmental disorders. This incredible philanthropic investment will support Dr. Baumer’s vision to provide exceptional care and lead research that will translate into measurably improved health outcomes for a larger and more diverse worldwide Down syndrome patient population.
– TOM LEMIEUX
Paul at Courage Classic in 2003 and 2009 (right).
Pictured from left to right: Christine, Tom, Paul, and Alessia, Paul's wife.
RESEARCH AT CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL COLORADO SCIENCE in the Service of Kids
Children’s Hospital Colorado on the Anschutz Medical Campus is one of the nation’s most distinguished academic pediatric health care systems. Here, innovation is driven by the creativity of scientists asking the most pressing questions about childhood health and disease — and committing to find answers.
With more than 500 unique principal investigators and more than 1,100 clinical and translational studies underway in the Colorado Child Health Research Institute, our research mission continues to pioneer medical breakthroughs that give patient families hope and save lives.
We want every child to live the healthy, hopeful life they deserve. Donor support for our research accelerates and facilitates our ability to discover the much-needed medical breakthroughs that will lead to the new treatments and cures of tomorrow, while saving lives today.
Your philanthropic investments:
Accelerating Outstanding Clinical Outcomes
Philanthropic support helps speed the scientific discovery process by seeding innovative ideas that are not yet proven, turning bold visions into reality through basic science research at the lab bench that leads to groundbreaking innovations at the bedside and back again.
Novel research approaches not only help the babies and kids of today, but also the adults they will become, with treatments and cures that impact the entire course of human life. Philanthropic support allows us to invest in emerging science and fast-track the investigation of novel ideas that hold the promise of new treatments and cures — like the ones that have benefitted our patient ambassador Shaun. Accelerate outstanding clinical outcomes
Shaun’s Quest to Send His Brain
Tumor to a Black Hole
Exploring New Frontiers in Cancer Treatment through Clinical Trials
Shaun cannot remember his life before cancer. He also cannot remember a time when he wasn’t infatuated with space exploration.
In many ways, these two things are inextricably intertwined for him.
Now 13 years old, Shaun was just 2 when doctors at the Children’s Hospital Colorado Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders (CCBD) told his parents, Sonya and John, that he had a cancerous brain tumor the size of a pool ball in the left side of his brain.
The diagnosis of pediatric low-grade glioma (pLGG) explained the symptoms he had been exhibiting for months: drooling, loss of speech, and difficulty balancing and moving.
Just as Shaun’s family received this terrible news and he began treatment, their son watched “Mickey Mouse Goes to Space” for the first time.
And that was it. Shaun’s curiosity was sparked, and his passion for space exploration began. Determined to become an astronaut one day, Shaun wore a spacesuit to each doctor’s appointment in the years that followed. Shaun’s tumor type — an astrocytoma — takes its name from the stars, referencing the shape of the cells from which this type of cancer grows.
Today, Shaun learns everything he can about space as a final frontier — much like our dedicated Children’s Colorado oncology researchers are committed to conducting clinical trials and exploring every aspect of the body in their quest for answers, treatments and cures for pediatric cancer.
A Diagnosis with Few Treatment Options
Every child’s journey with pLGG is different, based on the location of the tumor in their brain.
For some, delicate brain surgery can remove all or most of the cancer. But for many others — like Shaun — the tumor’s location makes it nearly impossible to remove fully through an operation.
For these kids, chemotherapy is the only option.
Shaun was first treated with chemotherapy for 12 months, which initially shrank his tumor. After several months, though, as is often the case with pLGG, the cancer started to grow again.
For recurring gliomas, there are few good treatment options. And potent chemotherapies frequently wreak havoc on kids’ growing bodies. At 4 years old, Shaun developed terrible mouth sores with one therapy and needed to take medications with significant side effects to help manage his excruciating pain.
As Shaun’s family waited for a new therapy with fewer side effects, doctors discovered through genomic testing that Shaun’s tumor had a genetic change that made him a candidate for a new chemotherapy clinical trial at Children’s Colorado.
A drug called binimetinib (MEK 162) was FDA-approved to stop the growth of certain kinds of adult cancer and showed promise for shrinking some pediatric tumors. The clinical trial was designed to determine the right dose and side effects of MEK 162 for kids, along with its effectiveness in treating pLGG.
Like black holes — Shaun’s favorite objects in space, which he said he loves because they are the most confusing phenomena — cancer is also terribly perplexing.
“Low grade gliomas are the most common brain tumor that we see in pediatrics,” said Kathleen Dorris, MD, an oncologist in the CCBD’s Neuro-Oncology Program and Experimental Therapeutics Program, who has been Shaun’s doctor from the beginning.
“These gliomas often go dormant after treatment and then ‘wake up’ again. Shaun’s tumor had a genetic change that made us think it would be potentially sensitive to this new orally targeted chemotherapy medicine.”
By participating in this clinical trial, Shaun helped doctors determine the correct dose of MEK 162 for children, better understand its side effects and discover that it can be effective against pLGG.
Shaun was also enrolled in another research study with a different form of experimental chemotherapy, which also recently received FDA approval — the second drug that Shaun has helped move from trials to treatment. Since being on this chemotherapy, his tumor has shrunk 30%.
When your child gets sick, and you don’t have options, you’re ready to walk across coals, to do just about anything to help them, but you can’t do any of that. The only hope for your child is a scientist in a lab — and a researcher at the bedside. And that must be paid for.”
– SONYA, SHAUN'S MOTHER
“Our goal is that these patients live long and happy lives,” said Dr. Dorris. “For Shaun, if we didn’t have clinical research and these new therapies, he very likely could have lost the mobility of his right side altogether and been unable to run and play sports, which give him so much joy. But it is imperative that we find better therapies that don’t have long-term toxicities; patients often undergo years of treatment currently, and we do not want them to develop new problems down the road.”
Funding Clinical Trials through Philanthropic Support
Children’s Colorado can conduct life-changing and lifesaving research because of the financial support of generous donors.
For Shaun and the thousands of other kids diagnosed with cancer each year, these innovations cannot wait.
Shaun’s tumor is constantly evolving and outsmarting the therapies that doctors administer. But thanks to the clinical trials taking place at Children’s Colorado and across the country, progress is being made to find new treatment options and perhaps eventually a cure for gliomas and other brain tumors.
Join us by giving today to make an astronomical difference in the lives of children like Shaun.
Science in the service of kids takes teamwork, and we need you on the team. Scan this QR code to watch a video and learn more.
Shaun, 13, has benefitted from new treatments discovered through cancer research at Children's Hospital Colorado.
Investing in Ideas
The Next Generation of Scientists
Cutting-edge research and world-class health care for children require recruiting and retaining experts specially trained in the field of pediatrics.
As these talented specialists seek to understand some of the most stubborn mysteries in childhood disease, they need funding to pursue this critical work. In recent years, many of our physician-scientists have leveraged seed funding through Research and Innovation Scholar Awards (RISAs) and Pilot Awards from private donors to secure multi-million-dollar federal grants that lead to new breakthroughs in pediatric medicine, creating ripple effects throughout patients’ lifespans.
Our community of donors can invest in big ideas to change the health of humankind through research. This year, our donors did just that.
Each year, Children’s Colorado awards support for research projects, and this spring, three of those awards were funded by philanthropy, resulting in 9 total awards and setting a record for the Colorado Child Health Research Institute (CCHRI). These awards position the hospital as an excellent place to conduct research and train for the brightest minds in pediatric science. The CCHRI always receives more applications than it can fund, so philanthropy plays a pivotal role in launching these innovative projects and the careers of the scientists behind them.
PILOT AWARDS provide financial support for cutting-edge research projects that will allow investigators to catapult their innovative ideas forward.
This spring, the Marilyn Hodges Wilmerding Research Pilot Award was given to Santos Franco, PhD, who will use these funds to better understand brain tumor growth and development in children. His work will be critical in understanding how to better treat and eventually prevent tumor formation in children.
RESEARCH AND INNOVATION SCHOLAR AWARDS (RISAs) help new investigators — early career faculty within the first five years of their careers — apply their research training and provide funding on a competitive basis.
Children’s Hospital Colorado Foundation Trustee and longtime donor Bruce Wagner and his wife Bev funded two early career researchers’ work this spring with the Bruce and Bev Wagner Family Research and Innovation Scholar Awards (RISA). Stephanie Gilley, MD, a pediatric nutrition physician, will use her RISA funds to focus on understanding how prenatal nutrition exposures and early childhood feeding practices interact to influence longterm health. Brad Constant, MD, will examine the best treatment strategies for children with Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD), such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, with his RISA funding. He will employ machine learning techniques to build predictive models from several different centers’ data to research the comparative effectiveness of various IBD treatments.
Tools and Technology for Research
At Children’s Hospital Colorado, donor support also helps advance our use of pioneering technology, such as artificial intelligence and data science; keeps our trailblazing research labs running; and enables us to build out some of the largest organ and tissue banks in the world that propel lifesaving discoveries.
When visionary ideas at Children’s Colorado are powered by the right resources, including your philanthropic investments, the impact on the children we serve is profound. Every research advance and breakthrough our experts make opens doors to more effective diagnostic tools, therapies and even cures for our young patients.
Harnessing the Power of AI
Children’s Colorado’s clinician-scientists are leading groundbreaking research projects with the potential to change the landscape for pediatric health care by using the predictive power of artificial intelligence (AI).
One of these AI research projects is taking shape at the Children’s Colorado Craniofacial Clinic. There, Antonio R. Porras, PhD, pediatric plastic and reconstructive surgery research director, and his team are leading the nation by using AI to develop
Plastic surgery research at Children's Colorado helps kids like
11.
Santos Franco, PhD
Ron Sokol, MD (center), Children's Colorado Chief Scientific Officer, holds the Bruce (left) and Bev (right) Wagner Family Endowed Chair for Child Health Research.
Stephanie Gilley, MD
Brad Constant, MD
Malakai,
Twin brothers Joey (right) and Matty (left). Matty was born with a rare heart condition and has benefitted from research conducted at Children's Colorado.
predictive models in the treatment of craniosynostosis, which often involves surgery.
Craniosynostosis is a birth defect in which the flexible sutures that hold the skull together fuse together too early, which can lead to many serious complications as the brain gets larger. Treatment for craniosynostosis often has varied results because surgeons may not have data that could help them accurately predict patients’ cranial growth. By employing AI, our craniofacial surgery experts are creating personalized, data-driven models that improve surgical outcomes.
In the Children’s Colorado Emotion and Development Lab at our Pediatric Mental Health Institute, psychiatrist Joel Stoddard, MD, MAS, is leading revolutionary research that could help predict suicide risk in kids, a leading cause of death for kids ages 10 to 14 in Colorado.
Dr. Stoddard and his team are tapping into the power of AI to learn which patterns are most likely to lead to a child’s suicide attempt. The AI tool then can create models that predict future suicidal thoughts and behaviors as well as the potential interventions that might save a patient’s life.
A Peek Inside our Trailblazing Labs
To ensure clinicians can bring new treatments and cures to kids, basic scientific research must be conducted in our labs, where exciting, original ideas are explored and tested.
Basic science research allows investigators to answer fundamental questions about how children’s bodies work — including how their cells “talk” to each other, what mechanisms control gene activity and how diseases develop. Philanthropic support undergirds the critical resources and infrastructure that these world-leading labs require.
In the neurosurgery lab of Allyson Alexander, MD, PhD, scientists are exploring the roots of the most frequent cause of pediatric epilepsy: focal cortical dysplasia (FCD). FCD is an abnormality that occurs during in utero brain development, resulting in the brain’s neurons not migrating in the proper formation. This often leads to childhood epilepsy, a common, frequently devastating — and sometimes fatal — disease for which surgery is often the only treatment.
By better understanding what causes FCD, Dr. Alexander’s lab findings could aid in the development of new medical or surgical therapies to treat kids with epilepsy, a condition that affects six out of every 1,000 children.
In the immunology and digestive health lab of Julia Dunn, PhD, scientists study a white blood cell type — called an eosinophil — one of the body’s first lines of defense against germs. The Dunn Lab, which was granted a prestigious New Innovators Award this year from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, aims to define the unique specialization states of eosinophils in mucosal tissues.
The goal of this work is to identify new therapeutic targets for the treatment of eosinophilic esophagitis, a chronic allergic and immune condition that causes inflammation of the esophagus due to an overabundance of eosinophils.
The World’s Foremost Tissue Banks are at Children’s Colorado
As a leader in academic medical research, Children’s Colorado has built some of the largest banks of tissue samples in the world, a vital asset in conducting research. Support from generous donors has allowed physician-scientists to collect, store and analyze tissue samples that have advanced our understanding of conditions ranging from deadly brain tumors to heart conditions.
For example, the Anschutz Medical Campus is home to one of the world’s foremost pediatric heart tissue banks, thanks to early investments in several specialized freezers to store these specimens. Through our world-class pediatric heart transplant program, Shelley Miyamoto, MD, who holds the Jack Cooper Millisor Chair in Pediatric Heart Disease, Selby's Chair in Pediatric Cardiology and is co-director of the hospital’s Heart Institute, collects cardiac tissue that makes it possible to conduct novel studies of treatments for kids with rare congenital heart defects.
Children’s Colorado has also built the largest biobank for brain tumor tissue samples in the country. Our neuro-oncology team had the foresight — and funds — to begin harvesting tumor samples long before technology was advanced enough to be able to analyze them, thanks to key donors such as The Morgan Adams Foundation. This is now an enormous asset for research, especially as we begin to consider the impacts of our findings for numerous cancers.
To learn more about supporting research at Children’s Colorado, please contact Kendall Córdova, Vice President, Philanthropy, at kcordova@childrenscoloradofoundation.org.
CAMPUS PARTNERSHIP LAUNCHES THE COLORADO CHILD HEALTH RESEARCH INSTITUTE
In June, Children’s Hospital Colorado, in partnership with University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, announced the launch of the Colorado Child Health Research Institute (CCHRI). The campuswide research partnership enables more than 500 physician-scientists, PhDs, nurse-scientists and other investigators to collaborate across disciplines to make research discoveries that will have a broad impact on human health from childhood to adulthood.
and operational efficiencies for investigators so they can focus on science, with the goal of more rapid translation of discoveries to patients and families. The institute also offers access to the most advanced clinical care through more than 1,100 clinical research studies and trials.
The CCHRI enhances administrative
The Pediatric Mental Health Data Science Incubator, established with the generosity of Children’s Hospital Colorado Foundation Board of Trustees Vice Chair John Freyer, Jr., and his wife Andi, is fueling projects and elevating the cutting-edge mental health research conducted at Children’s Colorado.
Allyson Alexander, MD, PhD
Shelley Miyamoto, MD
Joel Stoddard, MD, MAS
Meet Malakai
At less than 2 weeks old, Malakai was found on a bridge just outside of Pingdingshan, China.His birth parents had left him there to try to save his life. The baby boy was barely alive due to severe medical complications. He was rushed to a hospital in Shanghai, stabilized and transferred to a care center for medically complex orphans.
Almost three years later, Malakai was adopted and brought to his new home in Littleton, Colo., where he was greeted eagerly by his older siblings. He started receiving care at Children’s Hospital Colorado and was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder, called Opitz G/BBB syndrome.
Cutting-edge Surgery Techniques Help Kai
Nearly all the organs and systems down the center of Malakai’s body are affected by his condition, from the top of his skull to his toes. Since his diagnosis, Malakai has endured more than 20 constructive and corrective surgeries on every system in his body.
World-class pediatric plastic surgeons, including Brooke French, MD, at Children’s Colorado have performed craniofacial operations on Malakai to move the location of his eyes toward the front of his face. Dr. French conducted some of these surgeries with the assistance of virtual surgical planning, implementing best practices gleaned through plastic surgery research at Children’s Colorado. Working with engineers and a model of Malakai’s skull created from a CT scan, she and her surgical team were able to determine where to make their incisions and how best to move his bones to align and repair them. This approach allowed the surgeons to be as precise, efficient and safe as possible.
“This is a very large surgery, and Kai was a rock star,” said Dr. French.
“One of the goals of our surgery research is to help guide our surgical interventions for a more personalized approach. The hope is that we will acquire and analyze more data so that we can predict outcomes and know exactly when and how to surgically intervene for the best outcome for the patient.”
For Malakai, this approach has been life-changing. Malakai has beaten the odds since birth and continues to do so. He will need to undergo more surgeries, but his family feels that he’s in the exact place he needs to be to grow and develop.
To learn more about how plastic surgery researchers at Children’s Colorado are using AI to treat kids with craniofacial differences, see Tools and Technology for Research story on page 11.
Children’s Hospital Colorado Ranks Among Top Children’s Hospitals
Children’s Hospital Colorado has been named to the 2024-2025 Best Children’s Hospitals Honor Roll by U.S. News & World Report, a distinction awarded to only 10 children’s hospitals nationwide.
Top Rankings across Specialties
In addition to being named as the No. 1 pediatric hospital in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain region, Children’s Colorado has been recognized by U.S. News as being exceptional in all ranked specialties, with six of the Children’s Colorado specialties ranked among the Top 10, including:
No. 5 Diabetes and endocrinology
No. 6 Pulmonology and lung surgery
No. 6 Cardiology and heart surgery
No. 6 Urology
No. 7 Gastroenterology and GI surgery
No. 8 Cancer
For the first time, U.S. News ranked behavioral health programs. Children’s Colorado is now recognized among the best in behavioral health, based on a variety of factors around the hospital’s quality of behavioral and mental health care for children.
‘Here, it’s different’
“At Children’s Hospital Colorado, we like to say that ‘here, it’s different.’ With a U.S. News & World Report Top 10 ranking, we’re proving it,” said Jena Hausmann, president and CEO of Children’s Colorado. “This year’s new approach to rankings recognizes a leading group of pediatric hospitals whose work pushes the child health field to be better, heal more and make new discoveries.”
100 YEARS OF LEGACY GIVING
As we celebrate 100 years of planned giving, we are deeply grateful for our community's commitment and the enduring impact of these gifts on the lives of countless children and families.
Contact Craig Bardell at 720-777-1700 or cbardell@ childrenscoloradofoundation.org to learn how to include Children’s Colorado in your estate plans, designate us as a beneficiary of your retirement account or make a charitable gift through a donoradvised fund today.
"Kai" recently met a personal goal by summiting his first 14-er with his dad, Timothy.
Jena Hausmann
Cille B. and Ronald W. Williams Endowed Chair in Executive Leadership
Since receiving our first legacy gift in 1924 from Harry H. Tammen, former publisher of the Denver Post Children’s Hospital Colorado has been the beneficiary of numerous planned gifts from generous donors. These supporters are honored through our Tammen Society, named for Harry and his wife Agnes Reid Tammen.
Investing in Care Close to Home
Over the last decade, many community hospitals across the seven-state region served by Children’s Hospital Colorado have closed or significantly scaled back their pediatric inpatient units due to financial challenges. As a result, health care providers in these areas are treating fewer and fewer kids. Yet in pediatrics, the more children providers care for, the more expertise they develop, ensuring better health outcomes for kids.
Children’s Colorado is one of the only hospitals in the region to treat hundreds of thousands of pediatric patients, serving the largest number of kids from a seven-state region that includes Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and New Mexico.
1,000 Miles
No children's hospital is better equipped to care for kids in a 1,000-mile radius. Children’s Colorado offers the state’s largest and broadest network of pediatric specialists who travel throughout the region to see patients. Our experts treat everything from common to complex conditions in communities where specialized expertise may not be available.
Greater patient volumes help Children’s Colorado deliver the best outcomes because our clinical teams have seen it all. They have managed all the curve balls a disease throws at us and have the experience and proactive treatment plans in place for how to respond.
Access to Pediatric Healthcare Shrinking in Rural Areas
Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota have the lowest state populations in the country. Kids who live in these less populated areas have significantly reduced access to the expert pediatric health care they need.
When a child in a rural community needs a pediatric specialist, their family must often travel long distances to access specialty care — resulting in missed days of school and work, and hours in a car, sometimes driving in challenging weather.
In some instances, families forego much-needed specialty care for their children because they can’t miss work or don’t have a reliable vehicle. This is why Children’s Colorado brings care and other valuable resources to families across our seven-state region.
Care close to home is becoming increasingly important because many rural and frontier counties in our area are designated as Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSA), meaning they have both a high prevalence of poverty and less than one pediatric health care provider per 3,500 residents. This gap in physicians is expected to grow in the next 10 years.
Expertise: Specialty Care Clinics Across the Region
We believe that where a child lives should not determine their ability to access our care. Children’s Colorado’s specialty care outreach clinics bring our expertise to regional communities and provide muchneeded specialized pediatric healthcare to these areas in partnership with local pediatric offices and through care alliances with community hospitals. We are growing and expanding our specialty clinics regionally, elevating the services available to these communities.
Training: Continuing Education for Local Pediatric Providers
Children’s Colorado provides expert pediatric training and continuing education modules to regional healthcare professionals, including physicians, advanced practice providers and other medical professionals, so they can provide pediatric care in their communities. This is our way of ensuring kids across the region have local access to up-to-date techniques and treatments for kids.
Telehealth: Virtual Services Extend Our Reach
In 2023, we extended our expertise by conducting nearly 90,000 virtual visits with families across our seven-state region to help keep kids closer to home and family. We also offer telehealth services to support community hospitals across the region and provide access to our pediatric specialists. An example of this is our teleneonatology consultation service, which provides Children’s Colorado expertise in the Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) across several states to keep babies and families in their communities when possible.
OneCall: Medical Consultation a Phone Call Away
When providers in the region need our support, we are a phone call away. Physicians and other medical professionals can reach Children’s Colorado through OneCall, which allows community providers to consult a specialist, access our hospital resources and get the care their patient needs. When providers connect with OneCall, the calls are answered by pediatric nurses who can facilitate admissions to any Children’s Colorado location, conference in necessary provider expertise, arrange transportation and assist with any other patient referral or transfer needs. As a transfer center hub, OneCall also manages the deployment of our medical transport, Children’s One, across Colorado and beyond.
Life-saving Care in Wyoming
With the help of Children’s Colorado experts, Roman was diagnosed in Wyoming with primary adrenal insufficiency shortly after he turned 3 years old. This condition became life threatening because the little boy’s adrenal glands weren’t working as they should to create the hormones that help regulate many of his critical bodily functions.
Now 17, Roman lives in Casper and can access the specialty care he needs in his home community thanks to a pediatric endocrinologist who visits Casper twice a year to see patients in the Children’s Colorado Regional Clinic in the McMurry Medical Arts Building on the Wyoming Medical Center Campus. This wouldn’t be possible without support from donors like The Olivia Caldwell Foundation, which has helped fund the clinic’s operations and the travel costs of physicians and staff that come from Children’s Colorado.
Olivia, 8, Children’s Colorado patient ambassador from northern Colorado.
Roman, 17
Roman on the diamond.
Make an Impact
Kids in our seven-state region need Children’s Colorado now more than ever. As we offer new outreach clinics that are closer to families’ homes for specialty care or new technologies to better treat conditions, we must increase our investments. This is where your generosity can play a critical role as philanthropy supports the growth of our regional care network. Your philanthropic investments can provide care for kids in rural areas, continuing education for local providers and telehealth resources in our seven-state region and beyond.
NORTHERN COLORADO
Colorado’s Weld, Larimer and Morgan counties are are among the state's fastest growing areas according to the 2020 Census; Children’s Colorado is actively at work in these communities, pursuing growth in the years ahead to ensure we can care for pediatric patients closer to their homes.
21,000+
Kids Served
WYOMING
Children’s Colorado partners with community hospitals through Care Alliances in Cheyenne and Casper, ensuring that children and families in Wyoming can get the best care close to home. We also provide pediatric specialty care through outreach clinics in Casper, Cheyenne, Lander and Laramie
144,700 Kids in Wyoming
700+
Virtual visits with Wyoming families in 2023
2 Locations in Wyoming that now have Children’s Colorado expertise in their Neonatal Intentensive Care Units (NICUs)
JOIN US. Your philanthropy can support care for kids, continuing education for local providers and telehealth in our seven-state region and beyond. Contact Sharon McMeel, Chief Development Officer, at smcmeel@childrenscoloradofoundation.org to learn more about supporting regional care.
New Helicopter Provides Emergency Access to Expert Care
When a child needs emergency or critical care transport services, our new Children’s Colorado helicopter often provides the fastest, best equipped and safest route to the hospital and our pediatric experts. With fewer hospitals in rural areas, the need for emergency transportation to Children’s Colorado continues to grow significantly. Our new longer-range helicopter provides access to our worldclass capabilities for critically ill patients from rural areas — allowing for better outcomes.
We provide air transportation for seriously ill and injured patients because it is the right thing to do. But every year for the past five years, Children’s Colorado has operated our helicopter transport services as an important component of the $290 million in uncompensated compassionate care we provide each year.
Providing care for every child who needs us — regardless of their ability to pay — is part of the Children’s Colorado mission. Philanthropy makes this possible.
Expanding Access to Genetic Testing
The John and Margot Lane Foundation has an inspiring history of supporting pediatric health in southern Colorado, bringing care closer to home for numerous kids and families in the region. Their significant philanthropic contributions helped us construct Children’s Hospital Colorado, Colorado Springs — and our Pediatric Intensive Care Unit is recognized with the Lane Foundation name in celebration of the family’s commitment to children in the community.
Now, the Lane Foundation is continuing its legacy of expanding access to the best care for all of Colorado’s kids by enhancing genetic testing and precision medicine capabilities in southern Colorado with a generous $1 million gift.
Precision medicine is highly personalized medical care. Through genomic testing, Children’s Colorado doctors study a child’s DNA to make diagnoses, develop individualized treatment plans, which often have fewer side effects, and tailor cures specifically designed for each patient. The benefits of genomic testing extend far beyond one child and can transform countless lives through the discoveries that result.
Dramatically Reducing Diagnostic Wait Times: From Years to Months
Today, out of the potential 1,000 children in southern Colorado needing genetic testing to inform their health journey, the vast majority face significant barriers in accessing this testing. The Lane Foundation’s investment will help accelerate the path to treatment for a broader and more diverse population of patients, ensuring more families get the answers they need, much faster. With this critical funding, the genetic testing timeline will be cut dramatically — from years to around three to six months — thanks to the availability of more genetic counselors, faster interpretation of genetic findings, improved collaboration with pediatricians in the community and a more well-defined path to treatment options.
12,500
Children diagnosed annually at Children’s Colorado with rare genetic diseases
50%
Patients approved for testing by health insurance or Medicaid
“About one in 10 Americans lives with a rare disease,” said Alisa Gaskell, PhD, the Precision Medicine Institute’s scientific director. “We estimate that we will be able to serve hundreds more patients each year through the Lane Foundation’s generous partnership.”
Additional genetic testing will have a ripple effect of benefits for patients across the system of care, including reduced costs, better analysis of the data collected and more diagnoses. Visionary philanthropists, such as the Children's Hospital Colorado Foundation's Board of Trustees Chair Betsy Searle, who made a transformational $5 million gift to precision medicine, are the key to expanding these initiatives.
The Lane Foundation has served as a catalyst to launch expanded access to genomic testing for kids in southern Colorado. Our precision medicine team is looking for additional philanthropic partners to help this program reach its full potential in southern Colorado and beyond. Contact James Bjorklund, Senior Director, Southern Colorado, at jbjorklund@childrenscoloradofoundation.org today to learn more.
Phil Lane, Chairman of the John and Margot Lane Foundation, and Dr. Anita Lane at Philanthropy on the Farm.
