News Releases

Implications for Reducing Clotting in Kidney Disease Dialysis and Sepsis

The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania will join other hospitals throughout the nation in support of National Time Out Day – a campaign to remind hospital staff the vital importance of performing the “Time Out” and assuring all team members are fully engaged and committed to this process. “At the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP), patient safety is our highest priority. Hence we are committed to performing a “Time Out” before each and every procedure we perform,” said Victoria L. Rich, PhD, chief nurse executive and associate executive director of HUP.

Shiriki Kumanyika, PhD, MPH, professor of Epidemiology, has received an individual recognition award by the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, section on Public Health and Preventive Medicine, for her leadership role in shaping Healthy People 2020. Since 1979, Healthy People (HP) has set and monitored national health objectives to meet a broad range of health needs, engage people across the nation to work together, guide individuals toward making informed health decisions, and measure the impact of prevention activity.

Local Father & the CC Riders Cycle from March of Dimes Home Office In White Plains, NY, to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in Honor of Twin Daughters Born Premature

An Ethical and Clinical Exploration of the Pros & Cons of Robotic Surgery

Gerard Schellenberg, PhD, professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, is among the genetic experts involved in a study revealing new genetic targets in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), which may broaden targets available for potential genetic testing or therapeutic intervention. The study, published in Nature today, provides strong support for the involvement of multiple rare genetic variants, both genome-wide and at specific loci, in ASD.

In a JAMA study released today, Jeremy Kahn, MD, MS, assistant professor of Pulmonary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and colleagues highlight the increasing use of long-term acute care facilities. From 1997 to 2006, the number of long-term acute care hospitals doubled, the number of Medicare patients who were transferred to a long-term acute care hospital after a critical illness tripled, and the 1 year survival for these high-risk patients was poor.

Patients who received deep brain stimulation (DBS) experienced comparable benefits for the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease when DBS was delivered at either of two sites in the brain, contrary to the current belief that DBS has different motor effects when delivered at either of the two sites. The findings are reported in the June 3, 2010 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

David Dinges, PhD, chief of the division of Chronobiology and professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at Penn Medicine, will lead a U.S. scientific team as part of a simulated 520-day Mars mission simulation. The researchers will be monitoring the six crew members’ rest-activity cycles, performance and psychological responses to determine the extent to which sleep loss, fatigue, stress, mood changes and conflicts occur during the mission. The 520-day mission is broken into 250 days for the trip to Mars, 30 days on the surface, and 240 days for the return to Earth.

Although congenital heart disease represents the most common major birth defect, scientists have not previously identified common genetic variants that give rise to it. Now genetics and cardiac researchers, two of them brothers, have discovered a genetic variant on chromosome 5 that strongly raises the risk of congenital heart disease."This gene, ISL1, plays a key role in regulating early cardiac development, so there is a compelling biological reason for investigating it as a genetic risk factor for CHD," said study leader Peter J. Gruber, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and a cardiothoracic surgeon and developmental biologist at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Gruber collaborated with his brother, Stephen B. Gruber, M.D., Ph.D., a geneticist and epidemiologist at the University of Michigan Medical School. The study appeared online in the journal Public Library of Science One.