Texas Children's Research Institute Research Centers
Discovery Research Centers
Discovery research is where breakthroughs begin. The Texas Children's Research Institute has six specialized Discovery Research Centers, each pursuing the kind of early-stage discoveries that can revolutionize patient care.
Texas Children's Microbiome Center
A pioneering center studying the human microbiome with an emphasis on developmental aspects during childhood and pregnancy. It includes capabilities for metagenomic sequencing and microbial metabolomics as tools for exploring compositional and functional features of the human microbiome in the intestine and other body sites. New diagnostics and therapeutic strategies are being developed for acute and chronic diseases with microbial components.
Center for Cell and Gene Therapy
This center has a long history of successfully incorporating advances in cellular and gene therapy into clinical trials, with a comprehensive approach that brings together scientists and clinicians to develop treatment strategies for pediatric cancer and other diseases. Over the past 20 years, its GMP facility has manufactured more than 8,000 cellular therapy products, over 70 clinical-grade viral vectors, and numerous cell banks to support more than 100 investigational studies and international clinical protocols. The Center for Cell and Gene Therapy provides essential infrastructure to rapidly translate novel cell and gene therapy protocols from the laboratory to the clinic, ensuring timely implementation of translational projects that advance patient care.
Texas Children's Cancer and Hematology Center
The Texas Children’s pediatric cancer and hematology center is one of the largest in the country, offering individualized, state-of-the-art medical treatment for patients with childhood cancer and blood disorders. We currently have over 350 researchers in 47 laboratories performing cutting-edge research, and over 250 clinical trials in progress. Now we’ve partnered with the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the nation’s top cancer program, to form the Kinder Children’s Cancer Center. This new center will expand access to cancer care, accelerate drug discovery through coordinated research and development programs, speed clinical development for new therapies, and establish a clinical research program with more trials available for children with cancer than any other institution.
Center for Vaccine Development
An internationally recognized Product Development Partnership leading the development and testing of low-cost, safe, and effective vaccines against emerging and neglected tropical diseases. This center is currently advancing innovative vaccines for hookworm anemia and schistosomiasis (in Phase 2 clinical trials) and a Chagas disease and Lyme disease vaccine soon to enter clinical development. During the COVID-19 pandemic, its low-cost Covid-19 vaccine technology reached 100 million people in India (as CORBEVAX) and Indonesia (as INDOVAC), meriting the National Academy of Medicine’s prestigious David and Beatrix Hamburg Award in Clinical Medicine and Biomedical Research.
William T. Shearer Center for Human Immunobiology
A state-of-the-art research facility specializing in the discovery of novel therapeutics and insights into the human immune system. This center’s mission is to improve the quality of life and outcomes for patients with immune disorders through world-class multidisciplinary research. It serves as a “translational think tank center,” leveraging the synergy of teams working across diverse specialties, including rheumatology, allergy and immunology, endocrinology, global health, tropical medicine, hematology, oncology, infectious diseases, and gastroenterology.
Children’s Nutrition Research Center
The Children's Nutrition Research Center (CNRC) is a unique cooperative venture between Texas Children's Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine and the U.S. Department of Agriculture/Agricultural Research Service. As the first federal nutrition research center to investigate the nutritional needs of pregnant and nursing women, and children from conception through adolescence, the Children's Nutrition Research Center conducts research that helps improve the maternal, infant and child nutrition guidelines used by physicians, parents and others responsible for the care and feeding of children.