News Releases

A Penn professor's research efforts to fight debilitating degenerative muscle diseases have earned him international recognition by the Deputy Ruler of Dubai and Minister of Finance and Industry of the United Arab Emirates. In November 2008 Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum named H. Lee Sweeney, PhD, William Maul Measey Professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, as one of three recipients of the Hamdan Award for Medical Research Excellence. The award honors individuals whose medical research has helped to improve the lives of thousands of people worldwide.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have likely found one reason why the Ebola virus is such a powerful, deadly, and effective virus. Using a cell culture model for Ebola virus infection, they have discovered that the virus disables a cellular protein called tetherin that normally can block the spread of virus from cell to cell.

Jonni S. Moore Ph.D., Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, was awarded the 2008 FOCUS Award for the Advancement of Women in Medicine. Now in its fifth year, the Advancement of Women in Medicine award recognizes Penn faculty who demonstrate outstanding efforts to enhance the success and overall quality of life for women at Penn Medicine.

Many breast cancer survivors give low marks to the post-cancer care they receive from their primary care physicians, who generally serve as a patient's main health care provider after they're released from active treatment with their oncologists, according to a new study from the University of Pennsylvania's Abramson Cancer Center published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

On the evening of January 13, WHYY will host the debut of a critical documentary examining the personal and societal impact of Alzheimer's disease. Penn Medicine researchers, senior leadership as well as pharmaceutical industry and philanthropic leaders will gather to discuss the implications of Alzheimer's disease, which is the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States and costs the U.S. economy nearly $150 billion annually.

Efforts to fight the toll of cardiac arrest have typically focused on pre-hospital factors -- bystander CPR education and improvement, public defibrillation programs, and quicker EMS response. But new research from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine reveals that the hospital where patients are cared for after being resuscitated plays a key role in their chances of survival following these incidents, which take the lives of more than 300,000 Americans each year.

A research team led by Nancy Speck, PhD, Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, has identified the location and developmental timeline in which a majority of bone marrow stem cells form in the mouse embryo. The findings, appearing online this week in the journal Nature, highlight critical steps in the origin of hematopoietic (or blood) stem cells (HSCs), says senior author Speck, who is also an Investigator with the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute at Penn.

Racial disparities in end of life cancer care may be caused by a preference for continuing aggressive treatment - a decision that blocks enrollment in hospice care - according to a study by Jessica Fishman, PhD and David J. Casarett, MD, MA, of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Veterans Affairs Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion, and colleagues. In this study, African-Americans patients with cancer were less willing to give up treatment, compared with white patients. In addition, African-American patients reported greater needs for hospice services (i.e. counselor, respite care, chaplain, nurse), despite the fact that their cancer treatment preferences would exclude them from most hospice programs. The study, published early online by CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, indicates that the eligibility criteria for hospice services should be reconsidered.

More drafts usually mean a better product and so it also seems to go with the human immune system. As B cells develop, genes rearrange to allow their antibodies to recognize different foreign invaders or pathogens. But sometimes antibodies are created that recognize and attack the body's own cells. These self-reactive antibodies, like early drafts of a manuscript, must be edited into safer versions. This process is called receptor editing and is important for central or early B cell tolerance, which occurs while B cells are still developing in the bone marrow. A research team led by Nina Luning Prak, M.D., Ph.D, Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, has discovered that this editing process may go awry in people with certain types of autoimmune diseases.