News Releases

A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine demonstrate how mutations in the STRAD-alpha gene can cause a disease called PMSE (polyhydramnios, megalencephaly, and symptomatic epilepsy) syndrome, found in a handful of Amish children. PMSE is characterized by an abnormally large brain, cognitive disability, and severe, treatment-resistant epilepsy.The finding provides insights into how a signaling pathway involved in PSME may be associated with other neurological disorders.

Certain types of Parkinson’s disease medications are linked to impulse control disorders, such as pathological gambling, compulsive shopping and binge eating, according to a study of more than 3,000 Parkinson’s disease patients by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

A special event honoring a new, $25 million gift from Madlyn and Leonard Abramson will celebrate five decades of progress in cancer research and treatment at Penn Medicine, and highlight the promise of future work to conquer the disease.

Penn Medicine dermatologists will offer free skin cancer screenings on Saturday, May 22 from 8 a.m. to noon at the Ruth and Raymond Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine. The screening is sponsored by Penn Medicine’s Department of Dermatology and the Abramson Cancer Center.

Over 200 trauma professionals will gather to be recognized for their lifesaving and critical care efforts and celebrate the strides being made in patient care and injury prevention during Penn Medicine’s annual Trauma Reflections Ceremony on Thursday, May 6, 2010. The program will also celebrate “great saves,” with more than a dozen former Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania trauma patients and their families reuniting with the doctors and nurses who ensured their survival when they were critically injured.

Please join us for a writers’ roundtable to discuss issues of genetic profiling with study participants, and from a clinician, genetic counseling, and bioethics perspective.

Resources for Media Covering the American Society of Clinical Oncology Meeting June 4-8, 2010, from the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

TIME named Edna Foa, PhD, to the 2010 TIME 100, the magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Dr. Foa’s career has been devoted to understanding the psychopathology of anxiety disorders, including obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the development of short-term, evidenced-based treatments for these disorders. Her theoretical and empirical work has been highly influential among researchers and clinicians in the U.S. and abroad.

Garret FitzGerald, MD, director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics at the University of Pennsylvania, is the recipient of the 2010 Pharmacia-ASPET Award for Experimental Therapeutics. The Pharmacia-ASPET Award for Experimental Therapeutics is given annually to recognize and stimulate outstanding research in pharmacology and experimental therapeutics—basic laboratory or clinical research that has had, or potentially will have, a major impact on the pharmacological treatment of disease.

This symposium celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the discovery of the Philadelphia chromosome and brings us up to date on the genetic basis of cancer, addressing the role of tyrosine kinase enzymes, microRNAs, and immune cells.