Dr. Jennifer Abuzzahab, pediatric endocrinologist at the McNeely Pediatric Diabetes Center and Endocrine Clinic at Children’s Minnesota, and her research team have been selected by the Prader-Willi Syndrome Clinical Investigation Collaborative (PWS-CLIC) as clinical investigation partners. This will bring breakthrough therapies to Children’s Minnesota patients.
The mission of the PWS-CLIC is to improve the quality of clinical research and medical care for people with PWS across the lifespan through collaborative investigation and research to support evidence-based care.
Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is recognized as the most common genetic cause of life-threatening childhood obesity. In addition to obesity, PWS is usually characterized by low muscle tone; feeding difficulties in infancy; excessive eating in childhood; developmental and cognitive delays; characteristic behaviors, including skin picking, temper tantrums, sleep problems and obsessive-compulsive behaviors; and hormone differences. It occurs in approximately one out of every 15,000 births.
Dr. Abuzzahab and her team have developed an expertise in and passion for finding therapies to treat PWS through their research. This research examines if weight management medications used in the adult world, or those with different traditional uses, may help address PWS patients’ symptoms and concerns. Dr. Abuzzahab has contributed to many publications addressing severe obesity with six of these specific to PWS.
We are so pleased that Dr. Abuzzahab and her teams’ contributions to the care of patients with PWS have been recognized; the team is honored to join the PWS-CLIC’s network of health care providers working together to find and advance new therapies for this patient population.
