ScreenPlus: Expanded newborn screening to find more rare conditions
Official title: NY ScreenPlus: A Comprehensive, Flexible, Multi-disorder Newborn Screening Program
Funded at Albert Einstein College of Medicine · NIH-11191551 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This program offers expanded blood-spot screening for newborns in New York to find more rare conditions early and follow affected children over time.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Albert Einstein College of Medicine NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Bronx, United States) |
| Project start | September 4, 2012 |
| Project end | August 31, 2029 |
| Funding year | 2025 |
| Award (this year) | $716,479 |
| NIH project number | 5R01HD073292-12 |
| Project ID | NIH-11191551 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal candidates are newborns born at participating New York hospitals whose parents agree to the additional consented screening and follow-up.
✕Less likely to help
Babies whose parents do not consent, babies born outside participating sites, or infants with conditions that cannot be detected in dried blood spots may not benefit from this program.
What this research studies
If my baby is enrolled, a small extra dried blood spot will be tested for a changing panel of rare disorders in addition to routine newborn screens. The program uses a multi-tiered approach and follows any infants who test positive over the long term to track disease before symptoms and identify the best times to start treatment. Parents receive education, provide informed consent, and are invited to complete surveys, interviews, and focus groups to share their perspectives. The combined testing and follow-up aim to provide real-world data on whether adding new conditions to screening benefits children.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this could lead to earlier detection and treatment of treatable rare conditions and better long-term outcomes for affected children.
How similar studies have gone: Newborn screening has a long track record of successful early detection for some disorders and prior pilot programs have added conditions, while this multi-disorder, flexible pilot expands that approach and emphasizes parental engagement.
Where this research is happening
-
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Bronx, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Wasserstein, Melissa Pittel — Albert Einstein College of Medicine
- Study coordinator: Wasserstein, Melissa Pittel
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.