Visiting Scientist Program | Overview
Each year, The Manton Center will invite and host one or more visiting scientists from prestigious national and international Institutions to visit, teach, and lecture over a several day period. The interests and expertise of visiting scientists will be related to the mission and goals of The Manton Center for Orphan Disease research. In brief, The Manton Center has been established to encourage the development of new and innovative research on rare "orphan" conditions that have hitherto been understudied due to a lack of resources and interest on the part of the scientific and medical community. The Visiting Scientist Program will support the travel expenses, honorarium, and planning and meeting expenses for visiting scientists to visit The Manton Center and meet with, teach, and learn from The Manton Center and other Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard faculty and trainees.
Visits typically last one to five days, depending on the interests and availability of the visiting scientist and The Manton Center staff. During this time, one major keynote lecture will be scheduled for the visiting scientist to present their work of relevance to orphan disease research. This lecture will be publicized throughout the hospital and to the broader Harvard Medical School community and will be open to the general public. In addition, one or more ancillary seminars or teaching conferences may be scheduled in smaller group settings. A schedule of meetings with interested faculty and trainees will be prepared, based in part on stated interests of the visitor. In addition, more intensive visiting time may be made available for the visitor to spend with particular scientists or clinicians, teaching researchers here, and learning and transferring expertise back to their home institution.
The Manton Center scientists and interested colleagues will nominate potential candidates based on the following criteria:
- Expertise and current research interest in an area of orphan disease research
- National or international stature and recognition as an expert in their area
- Interests that are compatible and complementary to The Manton Center's existing research programs and to the greater Boston Children's Hospital community
2021 Visiting Scientist
Stephen Kingsmore, MD
BCH Department of Pediatrics Grand Rounds, Annual Manton Center Lecture 2021 (June 2, 2020)
President/CEO of Rady Children's Institute for Genomic Medicine
Lecture Title: Rapid whole genome sequence-informed management of infants and children in ICUs
2020 Visiting Scientist
Aviv Regev, PhD
BCH Department of Pediatrics Grand Rounds, Annual Manton Center Lecture 2020 (January 15, 2020)
Core Member, Chair of Faculty and Co-Director of the Klarman Cell Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Professor, Department of Biology and Koch Institute of Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Lecture Title: The Human Cell Atlases: Roadmaps to Understand and Treat Disease
2019 Visiting Scientist
Dr. Carsten Bonneman, MD
BCH Department of Pediatrics Grand Rounds, Annual Manton Center Lecture 2019
Senior Investigator and Chief of the Neuromuscular and Neurogenetic Disorders of Childhood Section at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).
Lecture Title: Mutation-Specific Precision Therapy: The COL6-related Dystrophies and Beyond