After a long hard winter in St. Louis, it is nice to feel a warm breeze again and see the flowers popping up. As we look forward to summer, I want to update you on the progress and events in the Washington University NF Center.
First, we will be celebrating 10 years of excellence in the Washington University NF Center and 20 years of providing multi-disciplinary care in the NF Clinical Program at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. To mark these momentous milestones, we hosted the second Washington University NF Center Research Symposium on May 16, 2014. The event was a tremendous success with over 180 medical professionals, researchers and families in attendance.
Second, based on extremely positive feedback, we are now expanding our Club NF activities to include Beat NF, a jazz music therapy-based program for toddlers, sponsored by the Washington University NF Center, in partnership with Jazz St. Louis and Maryville Music Therapy.
Third, there have been several exciting research advances to report. For example, researchers in the Washington University NF Center have found a link between patient gender and the risk of vision loss in NF1. In addition, Dr. Kimberly Johnson and her colleagues published a manuscript on their successes with the NF1 Patient Registry Initiative.
To stay up to date with our progress, I invite you to visit our website regularly and join us on Facebook.
Best wishes,
David H. Gutmann, MD, PhD
Donald O. Schnuck Family Professor
Director, Washington University NF Center