# Murdoch Children's Research Institute seeks new pediatric heart disease treatments

## Murdoch Children's Research Institute partners with Gladstone Institutes for research using stem cell medicine, artificial intelligence

### By Bret Baier , Amy Munneke

Fox News

Published **March 7, 2025 7:40pm EST** | Updated **March 7, 2025 9:13pm EST**



Australia's Murdoch Children's Research Institute is helping scientists use stem cell medicine and artificial intelligence to develop precision therapies for pediatric heart disease, the leading cause of death and disability in children.

Around 260,000 children  around the world each year. In the U.S., a child is born with a heart defect every 15 minutes.

"We're really interested in understanding how kids develop heart disease and where we can interfere to stop it progressing," Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) Heart Disease Group Leader David Elliott said.

Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, the mother of Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch, helped found Australia’s MCRI. The institute is partnering with Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco for the Decoding Broken Hearts Program.

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Amelia and Elijah Mallinson are two kids who could benefit from this research. The siblings live  and have the same genetic heart condition.

"We took her to our local emergency because she woke up, she was swollen," Amelia and Elijah’s mother, Ebony Mallison, said. "We thought she was just sleepy, but turns out she was in and out of consciousness."

Amelia was two years old when doctors discovered her condition.

"It was quite a shock because we weren't aware of anything that would cause him to also have a heart condition. It was very much a let's get him checked just to completely rule out that there's nothing wrong," Mallison said. "I feel like that was kind of more scary because we could anticipate the bad. But he's been really stable and really healthy so far, hasn't really needed any treatment or therapies yet, which is great."

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Elliott said the goal is to  before kids like Amelia ever need a transplant.

"For many, the disease would be absolutely critical if you could correct the problem in-utero," said Elliott. "Those who have very severe heart disease will need three surgeries before they’re five. And it's very draining for the families involved. And so, what we really like to do is really progress that and allow those children a much more effective life."

MCRI is part of the Royal Children’s Hospital, which treats around 700 heart conditions each year. Every case is enrolled in the Decoding Broken Hearts program.

"We can use a special technology called reprogramming. So we take a small sample of this child's blood," Elliott said. "From that, we can create a heart cell. And in that heart cell is an exact replica up here in the laboratory of the child's heart cell."

Researchers then create additional small heart replicas to alter the function and find possible treatments for the patients at Royal Children’s.

"We're trying to use all of those different tools and technologies to understand how the disease develops and where we can look for new therapies using precision medicine to help kids with ," Elliott said.

One of the newest tools with the help of Gladstone Institutes is .

"Gladstone brings the expertise and the computational know-how that's built up around the Bay area to use AI to study the disease," Elliott said. "What AI allows us to do is millions and millions of experiments in the computer before we bring them into the cell, and that really allows us to target in and look at the ideal spot to interfere, to help cure disease."

Amelia and Elijah have also participated in studies to further advance treatments for conditions like theirs.

"If it even helps one family, it's worth it," Mallinson said. "Every staff member that you come in contact with at the hospital and doing research, they all make a huge difference in the lives of the kids and everyone in the families of these kids."

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Bret Baier currently serves as FOX News Channel's (FNC) anchor and executive editor of _Special Report with Bret Baier_ (weeknights at 6-7PM/ET), chief political anchor of the network and co-anchor of the network’s election coverage. Baier is also host of FOX News Audio's "The Bret Baier Podcast" which includes _Common Ground_ and _The All-Star Panel_. He joined FNC in 1998 as the first reporter in the Atlanta bureau and is now based in Washington, D.C.
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