As the director of Clinical Genetics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Dr. Zackai has treated many rare conditions in her 49 years of practice. Her research has also included how we can learn from Holstein cows’ genetics when it comes to human reproduction. Recently, she was the recipient of the first-ever American Society of Human Genetics mentorship award, given for many years of professional development mentorship and training.

When an Old City construction project unearthed an 18th century burial ground this March, the Mütter Museum raced into action to exhume and preserve the historic bones and artifacts. Led by museum curator Dhody—a former Harvard osteologist—the resulting campaign (dubbed the Arch Street Bones Project) sought to conduct biological profiles of the skeletal remains, providing a historic look at some of Philadelphia’s first residents.

In March, researchers from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia released a groundbreaking report on efforts to create an artificial womb to potentially improve survival odds for extremely premature infants. Led by Dr. Flake, an attending pediatric and fetal surgeon at CHOP, the researchers created a fluid-filled “Biobag” to extend the gestational period; in a study, the device kept fetal lambs alive for up to four weeks.