Alain C. Cuna, MD

Associate Professor of Pediatrics, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine; Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Kansas School of Medicine

Full Biography

Taeju Park, PhD

Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine; Research Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Kansas School of Medicine

Full Biography

Each year, Children’s Mercy Research Partners, an innovative group of donors, come together to hear from select researchers and collectively award funding to advance promising pediatric innovation at Children’s Mercy. At the sixth annual Mercy Research Partners Pitch Party held in April 2025, the group selected two research projects, out of five pitches and 23 applicants, to accelerate:
 
Alain Cuna, MD - "Postbiotics for Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC) in preterm infants”
 
Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is a serious disease that affects the intestines of preterm infants, causing inflammation, tissue damage, and even life-threatening complications like infections and sepsis. NEC can also impact other pediatric patient populations, including newborn infants with congenital heart defects. While treatments like antibiotics and surgery exist, they often fail to curtail the devastating outcomes of NEC.  Dr. Alain Cuna and his team are seeking to develop postbiotics – a safe, non-living, and promising alternative to live probiotics. Unlike probiotics, postbiotics can't replicate or cause infections, and the team aims to prove they can strengthen the gut barrier, reduce inflammation, and enhance immune function. Early studies show that specific postbiotics can reduce the risk of NEC, and this research focuses on perfecting these formulations to ensure their safety and effectiveness.  Ultimately, this project aims to develop an ideal preventive treatment for protecting vulnerable infants from NEC and has the potential to revolutionize NEC prevention and improve outcomes for high-risk infants worldwide.
 
Dr. Cuna received $200,000 covering a project period of 7/1/2025-6/30/2027.
 
Taeju Park, PhD - "Peptide Therapeutics for brain tumors"

Glioblastoma – an aggressive brain cancer affecting both children and adults – spreads quickly through the brain and is hard to treat because it invades nearby brain tissues, making complete removal through surgery nearly impossible. Current treatments often leave behind cancer cells, leading to tumor recurrence and drug resistance, and don’t account for cancer spreading, leading to limited improvements in survival and quality of life. Dr. Taeju Park and his multidisciplinary team consisting of researchers at Children’s Mercy, the University of Kansas Lawrence, and the University of Kansas Medical Center Comprehensive Cancer Center aim to create a new therapy using specialized peptides (short chains of amino acids) coupled with nanosponges to block the tumor's ability to spread. These  nanosponges deliver peptides that target and stop proteins responsible for cancer cell movement,  helping to prevent the tumor from spreading and invading healthy tissues as other cancer treatments are being administered to eliminate the cancer. The nanosponge-coupled peptide drugs would provide a new strategy in cancer treatment and work together with standard of care and alternative therapies to improve treatment outcomes. This research aims to develop a new, safer,  and more targeted treatment to improve outcomes for patients facing this deadly disease.
 
Dr. Park received $199,978 covering a project period of 5/13/2025-12/31/2026.

In the past first five years of the program, Mercy Research Partners have contributed more than $2.29 million to support 19 research projects and five patent applications at Children’s Mercy.
 
Learn more about the Mercy Research Partners.