About me

Dr. de Ferranti is interested in describing, identifying, and evaluating and treating atherosclerotic risk factors during childhood to reduce cardiovascular disease burden during adulthood. She divides her time between clinical and implementation research, directing the Preventive Cardiology Clinic and providing clinical care for both preventive cardiology and congenital heart disease patients. Her research has included epidemiology, nutrition and pharmaceutical clinical trials, and more recently qualitative and modeling projects, and quality improvement. She developed a definition of pediatric metabolic syndrome, described its prevalence using national survey data (Circulation 2004) and applied the definition to subsequent NHANES data looking at the association with CRP in childhood (Clin Chem 2006). Her first clinical research project, “Inflammation in Children at High Risk for Atherosclerotic Disease”, laid the ground work for a nutritional intervention that was supported by an Eleanor and Miles Shore Scholarship, and subsequently by NHLBI through the K23 mechanism. This project, “Nutritional Treatment of Adolescents at Increased Risk for Early Atherosclerosis: an RCT,” was the first feeding study conducted at Boston Children's Hospital, and the first of its kind in overweight adolescents.