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Gale and Ira Drukier with Dr. Sing Sing Way.

Dr. Sing Sing Way, the Pauline and Lawson Reed Chair in Infectious Disease at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, has been awarded the inaugural Gale and Ira Drukier Prize in Children’s Health Research, Weill Cornell Medicine announced March 17.

The Drukier Prize honors an early-career pediatrician whose research has made important contributions toward improving the health of children and adolescents. Way was recognized for his groundbreaking research on how a woman’s immune system naturally tolerates the developing fetus and placenta during pregnancy, preventing rejection of these genetically foreign tissues. Many pregnancy complications – including stillbirth, prematurity and preeclampsia – are associated with disruptions in fetal tolerance, and children born following these pregnancy complications are highly susceptible to infection, breathing disorders, deafness and blindness, learning and behavior disabilities. With a better understanding of immune cells that maintain healthy pregnancy, doctors may be able to provide more effective therapies against these complications to improve the health of infants and children.

Way accepted the award, which carries a $10,000 unrestricted honorarium, and delivered a public lecture March 16 about reinforcing maternal immune tolerance during pregnancy.

“We are thrilled to honor Dr. Way with this inaugural award, and to formally recognize the quality of his vitalwork and his dedication to improving children’s health,” said Gale Drukier and Weill Cornell Medicine overseer Ira Drukier, who established the prize. “Dr. Way exemplifies just why we created this prize: We could not think of a more deserving individual, or someone who is a greaterexemplar for the importance of pediatric research.”

The Gale and Ira Drukier Prize in Children’s Health Research was established as part of a $25 million gift to Weill Cornell Medicine in December 2014, which also created the Gale and Ira Drukier Institute for Children’s Health. As part of its mission, this cross-disciplinary institute, dedicated to understanding the causes of diseases that are devastating to children, will award this prize annually.

“An accomplished physician-scientist and leader, Dr. Way is deeply committed to driving advances in pediatric research and patient care,” said Dr. Laurie H. Glimcher, the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean of Weill Cornell Medicine. “His groundbreaking basic and translational research has the power to profoundly improve the health of each and every pregnancy – and generations of children along with it. Weill Cornell Medicine is delighted to honor Dr. Way with the inaugural Gale and Ira Drukier Prize in Children’s Health Research.”

“I have enormous gratitude toward the Drukier family for creating this recognition, and toward Weill Cornell Medicine and the Department of Pediatrics for using this award to put pediatric research in the national spotlight,” Way said. “Reproductive immunology and prenatal infection are specialized research areas, and I am excited for this award to draw more attention to these understudied clinical problems that carry profound medical and emotional repercussions for families.”

Way has shown that expanded immunological tolerance during pregnancy weakens a woman’s ability to fend off infection-causing microbes. Once infection takes hold during pregnancy, the maternal immune cells’ tolerance of the developing fetus, which bears genetically foreign tissues, is overturned, causing a rejection-like reaction.

In addition, Way discovered why newborn infants in the first weeks after their birth are more susceptible to infection. His research showed that immune cells in newborn babies are actively suppressed. These findings, published in Nature, change the conceptual framework for how scientists view newborns’ susceptibility to infection, which may lead to improved strategies for preventing infection when children are most vulnerable.

Way received his medical degree and a doctorate in microbiology and immunology from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He completed his residency in pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, a fellowship in infectious disease at the Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle, and postdoctorate research training at the University of Washington. He is outspoken about the need for pediatricians to develop research careers to optimally address clinical problems unique to infants and children.

Anne Machalinski is a freelance writer for Weill Cornell Medicine.