What's New
February 10, 2024: COMBO is excited to announce our 3rd Annual Playdate: a block party celebrating the spirit and resilience of all young families in our Upper Manhattan community.
Join us for this free event Sunday, April 7th to enjoy family-friendly activities, crafts, music, resources from local organizations, valuable workshops, giveaways & prizes, and more!
Click the link below for details and to RSVP.
December 28, 2023: As we round the corner into our fifth year(!) of studying the pandemic’s effect on “the COVID-19 generation,” we want to take a moment to celebrate the COMBO Initiative’s many accomplishments in 2023. Click this link for this year’s highlights from the COMBO Initiative, and the team that makes it all possible.
April 25, 2023: Dedicated to celebrating the resilience of our community, the 2nd annual COMBO Playdate was a smash hit. Click here to read about this family-centered event, and how this year’s fun and educational activities, giveaways, and prizes were designed to address the priorities families shared with us.
February 16, 2023: COMBO is excited to announce our second annual Playdate - a time for our participants to join us for an afternoon to meet our researchers, chat about our study, and enjoy a variety of free activities for the whole family! Join us Sunday, April 23rd, from 2:00 - 4:30pm in Haven Plaza, located at 710 W 168th Street, New York, NY 10032. Click the link below to view the invitation and RSVP.
June 22, 2022: The COMBO Playdate was great! It was a pleasure to welcome over 300 attendees to our playdate, where we were able to get to know our participants better, build a network among families, and also enjoy a variety crafts and games. We are so grateful for our wonderful participants and this was just a small way for us to give back. Thank you to everyone who attended! See below for a short piece on how the playdate went:
March 31, 2022: COMBO is excited to announce our first annual Playdate - a time for our participants to join us for an afternoon to meet our researchers, chat about our study, and enjoy a variety of free activities for the whole family! Join us Sunday, May 22nd, from 12:30 - 4:30pm in Haven Plaza, located at 40 Haven Ave, New York, NY 10032. Click the link below to view the invitation and RSVP.
February 24, 2022: Dr. Dani Dumitriu has been appointed to serve as the new Director of the Nurture Science Program (NSP)! This program aims to increase our understanding of parent-child emotional connection. These discoveries will help us learn how to strengthen the child-family relationship and prevent long-term emotional, behavioral, and developmental difficulties. Congrats Dani!
October 5, 2021: COMBO members will be presenting one poster and two lightning talks at the COVGEN Alliance Summit this November! Join us there on 11/10 to hear about breastfeeding practices (lightning talk led by Dr. Lauren Walzer and Dr. Presley Nichols), infant neurodevelopment at 9 months (lightning talk led by Dr. Morgan Firestein and Jessica Hu), and associations between maternal stress and infant temperament (poster led by Catherine Bianco) in the COMBO cohort!
September 24, 2021: COMBO research coordinator Maggie Kyle and Dr. Dani Dumitriu published a review article in Current Opinion in Pediatrics entitled "The effect of coronavirus disease 2019 on newborns". Read it here.
April 29th, 2021: Dr. Dani Dumitriu and Dr. Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman published an editorial in JAMA entitled "Understanding Risk for Newborns Born to SARS-CoV-2–Positive Mothers". Read it here.
April 12th, 2021: COMBO was awarded an R01 from the National Institute of Mental Health! Co-PIs Dr. Dani Dumitriu, Dr. Catherine Monk, and Dr. Rachel Marsh were awarded 1R01MH126531-01 to investigate socioemotional brain circuits using sMRI, as well as caregiving and bonding behavior, in a subset of 100 mother-child dyads enrolled in COMBO.
March 31st, 2021: Our JAMA Pediatrics paper, Outcomes of Neonates Born to Mothers With Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection at a Large Medical Center in New York City, was selected as one of four Hot Topic Articles in Newborn Medicine in 2020 by the Academic Pediatric Association.
March 26th, 2021: Our data on racial and ethnic disparities in maternal and infant sleep during the COVID-19 pandemic, led by COMBO postdoctoral research fellow Dr. Maristella Lucchini, have been preprinted on medRxiv! Visit this link to read more about our findings.
March 23rd, 2021: COMBO submitted an application for NIH OTA-21-015B, focused on Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection (PASC). View the Research Opportunity Announcement here.
March 18th, 2021: COMBO principal investigator Dr. Dani Dumitriu discussed our findings with the Einhorn Collaborative and Early Childhood Funders Collaborative. Visit this link for a summary and to watch the recording.
January 11, 2021: Pediatric Neuroendocrinology fellow, Dr. Presley Nichols, under the mentorship of Drs. Ilene Fennoy, Sharon Oberfield, and Dympna Gallagher, submitted an abstract to PES 2021 on the effects of prenatal SARS-CoV-2 infection on newborn size.
January 5, 2021: COMBO members submitted a total of 6 abstracts to PAS 2021! Join us there to hear about patient experiences (led by MPH student Vanessa Sandra), breastfeeding (led by newborn hospitalist Dr. Lauren Walzer), food insecurity (led by Institute of Human Nutrition student Maha Hussain and newborn hospitalist Dr. Cristina Fernandez), vertical transmission (led by COMBO Research Coordinator Maggie Kyle), neurodevelopment (led by Fifer lab postdoctoral fellow Dr. Lauren Shuffrey), and infant sleep (led by Fifer lab postdoctoral fellow Dr. Maristella Lucchini).
December 10, 2020: Drs. Dani Dumitriu and Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman discussed the importance and safety of breastfeeding with health care providers and other stakeholders through a Medela sponsored webinar. Event details: https://www.medela.us/mbus/for-professionals/Education/Programs/Detail/7...
Link to webinar recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH09sVd4sBc&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=...
December 3, 2020: Drs. Dani Dumitriu and Ukachi Emeruwa shared COMBO-related findings with the Africa CDC. You can watch this presentation here: https://vimeo.com/487024343/8dd095c544