Gale and Ira Drukier Prize in Children’s Health Research Awarded to Pediatric Rheumatologist at Boston Children’s Hospital

(New York, Oct. 16, 2025)—Dr. Lauren Henderson, a physician-scientist whose research focuses on children with difficult-to-treat juvenile idiopathic arthritis and other autoimmune disorders, has been awarded the 10th annual Gale and Ira Drukier Prize in Children’s Health Research, Weill Cornell Medicine announced today.           The Drukier Prize honors an early-career pediatrician whose research promises to make important contributions toward improving the health of children and adolescents. Dr. Henderson is an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and a pediatric rheumatologist at Harvard-affiliated Boston Children’s Hospital. She is being recognized for her research exploring how the immune system goes awry in children with autoimmune diseases, particularly juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), and improving treatments for these children.Dr. Henderson’s lab studies how T cells in the immune system contribute to inflammation and long-term joint damage in JIA. One of her key discoveries identified the central role of pathogenic T cell-B cell interactions in the arthritic joints of a subgroup of young, female patients with JIA. She also pinpointed a specific immune signal that may help prevent regulatory T cells—which normally control inflammation—from being reprogrammed to act abnormally. She also played a key role in developing national guidelines for conditions like macrophage activation syndrome (MAS) and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children