Kyle MacQuarrie, MD, PhD, Attending Physician at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, received the 2025 Joseph and Dorothy Giddan Child Health Research Award to support his research on rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare and aggressive pediatric cancer of the muscle.
Dr. MacQuarrie’s research project, Targeting Chromosomal Organization and Differentiation in Rhabdomyosarcoma Cells, aims to advance the understanding of how to differentiate rhabdomyosarcoma cells to stop their growth by targeting the organization of chromosomes. The hope is that differentiation therapy may lead to ways to reduce some of the side effects patients experience from common cancer treatments and increase survival rates. Additionally, the project’s focus on differentiation has the potential to uncover not only biology relevant to treating rhabdomyosarcoma but also previously unknown biology relevant to the development of normal skeletal muscle, says Dr. MacQuarrie.
Dr. MacQuarrie is the principal investigator of the MacQuarrie Laboratory at Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute and is an assistant professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Pediatric research at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago is conducted through Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute.
Administered by Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences (NUCATS) Institute, the Joseph and Dorothy Giddan Child Health Research Award supports highly innovative, lab-based basic or translational research projects that expand the knowledge base in the field of child health.
Pediatric research at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago is conducted through Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute.
