Rita Balice-Gordon, PhD, professor of Neuroscience, and Josep Dalmau, MD, PhD, professor of Neurology, both of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, have been awarded the McKnight Neuroscience of Brain Disorders Award for 2010. Balice-Gordon and Dalmau discovered that some diseases, which patients have been told have no cure, can be attributed to disorders of the immune system. They were recognized for their research project, Cellular, Synaptic and Circuit Mechanisms of Autoimmune anti-Glutamate Receptor Disorders of Memory and Cognition. The McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience provides grants to projects exploring the biology of neurological and psychiatric diseases.
For more information, view the McKnight Foundation News Release.
Penn Medicine is one of the world’s leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, excellence in patient care, and community service. The organization consists of the University of Pennsylvania Health System and Penn’s Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine, founded in 1765 as the nation’s first medical school.
The Perelman School of Medicine is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $550 million awarded in the 2022 fiscal year. Home to a proud history of “firsts” in medicine, Penn Medicine teams have pioneered discoveries and innovations that have shaped modern medicine, including recent breakthroughs such as CAR T cell therapy for cancer and the mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines.
The University of Pennsylvania Health System’s patient care facilities stretch from the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania to the New Jersey shore. These include the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Chester County Hospital, Lancaster General Health, Penn Medicine Princeton Health, and Pennsylvania Hospital—the nation’s first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional facilities and enterprises include Good Shepherd Penn Partners, Penn Medicine at Home, Lancaster Behavioral Health Hospital, and Princeton House Behavioral Health, among others.
Penn Medicine is an $11.1 billion enterprise powered by more than 49,000 talented faculty and staff.