Dr. Reid is a pediatric plastic surgeon and the Bernard Sarnat Scholar of Craniofacial Research at the University of Chicago Medical School. His research focuses on finding ways to regenerate bone.

Dr. Reid received his undergraduate degree from Yale and did a combined M.D./Ph.D. program at Harvard. He did his residency in plastic surgery at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine and his fellowship in craniofacial surgery at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. At the University of Chicago, he has won awards for his teaching and his research, and is a collaborator on an NIH-funded research grant.

Normally, when babies are born there are 4 sutures (gaps) between the bones of the skull, which allow the brain to continue growing after birth. These are called fontanelles or “soft spots” and typically close during the first two years of life. However, in approximately 1 in every 2,500 babies, one or more of these sutures closes too early. Because the brain is still growing, this causes pressure in the brain and a misshapen skull. This condition, called craniosynostosis, can be corrected by surgery.

However, there are always risks with surgery, especially in infants. If we understood better causes this disorder, we might be able to come up with new ideas for alternative treatments. So, in a recent study, Dr. Reid examined samples from four baby boys with craniosynostosis to learn more about what is going wrong. For each patient, they collected cells from the prematurely-closed suture and from one of the other normally-developing sutures to compare to.

The main finding of this study was that a gene called BMP9 is important to the development of craniosynostosis. This makes sense because all of the BMP genes are known to be involved in making bones. (The “B” in BMP actually stands for “bone”!) Dr. Reid found that cells in the prematurely-fused suture had higher levels of BMP9 than cells in the normal healthy suture. Additionally, if he provided the cells from either suture with extra BMP9, they would create more bone. This addition of extra BMP9 also changed the expression levels of several other genes, which provide new potential therapeutic targets.