Blog Topic: Research

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  Uncovering the Long Term Health Impact of Playing in the NFL

  February 02, 2018

  In 1987, NFL players went on strike. Teams scrambled to fill their rosters with “replacement players” with some experience with college or professional football. They became a footnote in sports history, but it turns out these players may actually play a critical role in helping us understand how playing in the NFL affects long-term health.

  Brain and Behavior Neurology Research
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  Scientist’s Best Friend

  January 29, 2018

  Meet Venus and Mercury, the loving mother-and-pup companions of married-couple researchers Jean Bennett, MD, PhD, and Albert Maguire, MD. Like many Swedish Briards, they were born with a form of congenital blindness, and their impaired eyesight got worse with age — until they underwent an experimental therapy that Bennett and Maguire had pioneered.

  General Interest Research
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  The Promise of a New Year: A Look at Medicine in 2018

  January 10, 2018

  From the FDA’s approval of the first ever gene therapy that brings new hope to cancer patients, to the approval of a gene therapy that can treat a rare form of blindness, to advancements in clinics and labs that could lead to new discoveries, 2017 saw great achievements in the field of medicine. Here’s what Penn doctors say they’re excited about as they look to 2018.

  Research Cancer Breast Cancer Radiology Ear Nose and Throat Psychiatry Dermatology
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  Kyra’s Legacy

  December 11, 2017

  A little over 10 years ago, Abramson Cancer Center director Robert Vonderheide, MD – then an assistant professor of Hematology/Oncology – and his colleagues at Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine, told a room full of local reporters about an immunotherapy vaccine to treat lymphoma in pet dogs, which they hoped would someday help children with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

  Cancer General Interest Research
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  Fighting Antibiotic Resistance with a Little Help from Nature

  December 08, 2017

  The bacteria are winning. That’s what happens when they’re excessively attacked with the same antibiotics for 70 plus years. About two million people became infected with resistant bacteria this year in the United States, and at least 23,000 of them died as a direct result, according to CDC estimates. The future looks even grimmer: By 2050, resistant bugs will account for 10 million annual deaths around the world.

  Ear Nose and Throat Research
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  Addressing Adherence: PrEP’s Achilles Heel

  June 09, 2017

  Prevention is still our best weapon against HIV. One prevention method that has gained a lot of public attention in recent years is pre-exposure prophylaxis, also known as PrEP. Daily PrEP use can lower the risk of getting HIV from sex by more than 90 percent and from injection drug use by more than 70 percent—but the challenge with PrEP, like many other daily medications, is adherence. That’s where Penn Medicine's Helen Koenig and recent Perelman School of Medicine graduate Giffin Daughtridge come in.

  Basic Science Research Public Health Infectious Disease
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  Rare Disease Revolution: Changing Research Through an App

  June 07, 2017

  Ever since Apple rolled out its ResearchKit framework two years ago, valuable data collected from the iPhones of patients who opt-in has poured into medical centers investigating better ways to study and treat diseases. The latest foray into mobile research technologies comes from researchers in Penn Dermatology, who recently launched a ResearchKit app focused on sarcoidosis.

  Big Data Dermatology Research
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  Mining the Data Mother Lode

  June 05, 2017

  One of the newest entities with the Penn Institute for Biomedical Informatics, the Health Language Processing Lab combines social media content with other sources of health information in a unique way aimed at understanding how people use language to communicate health needs.

  Big Data Research Epidemiology pharmacy
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  Managing Body Donations Can Be Quite the Undertaking

  May 12, 2017

  Unlike with organ donation, people who elect to donate their bodies do so in the name of science. For those who donate their bodies to the Perelman School of Medicine, the first person to receive this generous gift is Dwayne Hallman, manager of PSOM’s morgue, who prepares the donations for students and researchers.

  Education Research
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  Hands-on Chemistry Course Has Students Taking on Rare Cancers

  May 08, 2017

  With graduation just around the corner, a few undergraduates finishing up a hands-on chemistry course will be taking very useful skills with them to the next stop on their career and education path. With robotic arms and moving trays to run automated chemical analyses, measured how effective dozens of cancer drugs are against cells found in a rare type of cancer.

  Cancer Research Education