News Releases

Upset and inspired by a firsthand look at medical care delivered without electricity and running water, Kathryn Cunningham Hall started Power Up Gambia! and has raised $300,000 to install solar panels that will provide clean water and constant electricity to a hospital in West Africa's Gambia. She is one of the 155 individuals in the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine's new class of 2008 who share a passion for driving change and progress in the medical community. Representing 30 states and 61 colleges from around the country, these students will officially start their medical careers tomorrow, as they receive their white coats and recite the Hippocratic Oath in front of family and friends.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have identified a protein from a most unlikely source -- baker's yeast -- that might protect against Parkinson's disease. More than a million Americans suffer from Parkinson's disease, and no treatments are available that fundamentally alter the course of the condition. By introducing the yeast protein Hsp104 into animal models of Parkinson's disease, researchers prevented protein clumping that leads to nerve cell death characteristic of the disorder.

This weekend, children ages six to 17 who've experienced the death of parents, relatives or friends will gather for the Philadelphia area's second annual Camp Erin. The three-day camp offers a variety of traditional summer camp activities combined with professional grief counseling, education and emotional support to help campers find innovative ways to remember and memorialize their lost loved ones and develop essential coping skills.

The August 14 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine explores the issue of organ donation after cardiac death. In the journal's Perspective Roundtable, Arthur Caplan, PhD, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, weighs in on the ethical considerations of the changing assumptions about when death occurs, the importance of respecting "the dead donor rule" and how to decide which patients are suitable organ donors.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered that a protein called FOXA2 controls genes that maintain the proper level of bile in the liver. FOXA2 may become the focus for new therapies to treat diseases that involve the regulation of bile salts. The study was published online this week in Nature Medicine.

While scientists and physicians know what happens if you don't get six to eight hours of shut-eye a night, investigators have long been puzzled about what controls the actual need for sleep. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine might have an answer, at least in fruit flies. In a recent study of fruit flies, they identified a gene that controls sleep.

John Gearhart, who led a research team that first identified and isolated human embryonic stem cells, has been named director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and also a Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have identified two new techniques to detect the progression of Alzheimer's disease earlier. By catching Alzheimer's disease before symptoms are apparent, physicians can prescribe treatments to slow down the disease progression. In one study, researchers identified abnormal structural changes in the brains of seemingly normal elderly that indicated mild cognitive impairment, a precursor to Alzheimer's disease. In a second study, researchers detected changes in cells that may help predict the transition from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's disease.

By studying medication orders that are withdrawn ("discontinued") by physicians within 45 minutes of their origination, researchers at The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have demonstrated a systematic and efficient method of identifying prescribing errors. The method, they say, has value to screen for medication errors and as a teaching tool for physicians and physicians-in-training. The report is published in the July/August 2008 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.