News Releases

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.

Garret FitzGerald, MD received the J. Allyn Taylor International Prize in Medicine last month. Supported by the Robarts Research Institute at The University of Western Ontario, the award annually recognizes the world's leading medical researcher. FitzGerald was recognized for his contributions to the development of low-dose aspirin for the prevention of heart disease and being the first investigator to predict and explain the cardiovascular hazard from nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

Two studies published this month in the Journal of Clinical Investigation provide a significant advance in understanding how some species of monkeys such as sooty mangabeys and African green monkeys avoid AIDS when infected with SIV, the simian equivalent of HIV. Researchers comparative genomics of SIV infection, attempting to identify possible genes related to disease progression or resistance. Their findings change the way AIDS researchers think about human versus simian AIDS infection.

Chronic wounds, including venous leg ulcers which are caused by poor circulation in the veins of the legs, are difficult and expensive to treat. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have developed the first targeted, short-term delivery method using gene transfer technology to effectively treat venous leg ulcers.

During the busy holiday season, four Penn Medicine locations will pause to honor friends, family and loved ones by lighting trees. Penn Wissahickon Hospice, a division of the Penn Home Care & Hospice Service and part of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, holds the Light Up a Life ceremony annually to honor the people who have brightened and enriched the lives of others. Each light on the tree is dedicated in honor or memory of a patient, friend or loved one.

The American College of Psychiatrists has selected Dwight L. Evans, MD as the 44th President of the organization for 2009-2010. As President, he will oversee the College's governance and chair its Annual Meeting "Translating Scientific Advances into Psychiatric Practice", in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, February 24-28, 2010.

Aaron Temkin Beck, MD, the father of Cognitive Therapy, has been presented with the Anna-Monika Prize, awarded once every two years by the Anna-Monika Foundation, for advancing knowledge of the biological structure and functional disturbances of depression. The privately funded Anna-Monika Foundation, established in 1964 and based in Berlin, Germany, promotes experimental research on the causes of depression.

On November 23, 2009, Penn Medicine will celebrate the upcoming opening of the Roberts Proton Therapy Center with an event to honor the many donors and staff members who have made this cutting-edge $140 million radiation therapy facility a reality. Patients from all over the country are expected to come to Penn for this precise form of radiation therapy, which is especially well suited for treating cancers in the brain, head, neck, eye and spinal cord, and in hard-to-reach organs such as the liver, pancreas, and esophagus. Partnerships with the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the U.S. Department of Defense will also allow pediatric cancer patients and U.S. military service members and their family members to be treated in the new center.

Thiocyanate Reduces Damage by Inflammatory Molecules in Lung, Nerve, Pancreas, and Vessel-Lining Cells

An international team of scientists, led by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, is taking the first step in developing a treatment for a rare genetic disorder called fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP), in which the body's skeletal muscles and soft connective tissue turns to bone, immobilizing patients over a lifetime with a second skeleton.