On Wednesday, October 13th, the Celiac Disease Foundation presented a webinar with Dr. Jocelyn Silvester entitled, Discover What’s Happening with Pediatric Celiac Disease.
Dr. Silvester’s credentials are impeccable. She is the Director of Research, Celiac Disease Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, a professor at Harvard Medical, and a recipient of the Foundation’s Young Investigator Award. Her presentation was relevant to anyone who has children or grandchildren with celiac disease. Dr. Silvester brings a unique sensitivity to her research because she is also a practicing and committed clinician, seeing pediatric patients in one of the largest and most respected pediatric celiac disease centers in the world. She talks to her patients… she talks to parents. She knows the suffering and hardship this disease is causing.
Key points of Dr. Silvester’s presentation about celiac disease and children include:
- the use of 504 plans in school,
- why identifying celiac disease biomarkers are important,
- the possibility of therapeutics coming soon to treat celiac disease, and
- changes in recommendations for performing biopsies, and more.
She emphasized in her presentation the importance of doing more celiac disease research. She noted that although we have learned and continue to learn a lot about pediatric celiac disease, a lack of research funding is slowing the pace of advancement.
We recorded Dr. Silvester’s presentation, and you can watch it here. If you have questions about pediatric celiac disease that weren’t answered in the presentation, please send us a note and we will get them answered for you.
Our mission is to mobilize every resource we can to accelerate the research being done by brilliant scientists like Dr. Silvester for treatments and a cure for celiac disease. Your tax-deductible donation is greatly appreciated.