In brief, what’s happening at Penn—whether it’s across campus or around the world.
According to SciCheck, scientists are monitoring COVID-19 vaccines’ effectiveness against the virus carefully, with updated or new vaccines a possibility in the future, if need be. Social media claims blaming vaccination for an impending variant “disaster” are hypothetical predictions that ignore life-saving benefits of the vaccines.
FULL STORY AT Annenberg Public Policy Center →
The Penn Medicine CAREs Grant program supports faculty, students, and staff who volunteer in community-based programs outside of their jobs. This quarter, Penn Medicine CAREs awarded grants to 28 projects, many of which aim to fill vast needs in the community created by the COVID-19 pandemic, while others seek to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion.
FULL STORY AT Penn Medicine News →
Furthering efforts to understand why potentially life-saving statins are so under-prescribed among American patients with heart disease, a new study shows that clinicians are more likely to sign a script for them earlier in the day. Researchers in Penn Medicine’s Nudge Unit found that patients with the very first appointments of the day were most likely to have statins prescribed, and the odds progressively fell through the morning and remained low throughout the afternoon.
FULL STORY AT Penn Medicine News →
An overactive genetic pathway in muscle stem cells was found to shorten the ends of chromosomes, called telomeres, resulting in DNA damage that impedes the normal healing response, according to a new study by researchers in Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. The researchers believe this finding unveils the body’s origin point for the chronic muscle injuries associated with diseases like Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
FULL STORY AT Penn Medicine News →
New research study findings from Penn Medicine, published in Cell Stem Cell, show that the long-held assumption that alveolar type 1 and alveolar type 2 cells behave the same way in children and in adults is untrue. The findings could impact the understanding of regenerative lung therapies and why COVID-19 and other viruses affect children differently than adults.
FULL STORY AT Penn Medicine News →
More than two-thirds of pancreatic cancer patients harboring genetic mutations saw their tumor stop growing or shrink substantially after being switched from intensive chemotherapy to the PARP inhibitor rucaparib as a maintenance therapy, researchers from the Abramson Cancer Center reported online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
FULL STORY AT Penn Medicine News →
A Penn Medicine study reveals that external factors, such as the volume of pre-filled syringes, or a default number of opioid tablets that could easily be ordered at discharge, can shift prescribing and compel emergency department physicians to administer or prescribe greater quantities of opioids. Opioid prescribing behavior can also be decreased by external factors, such as a supply shortage.
FULL STORY AT Penn Medicine News →
Penn Medicine researchers used microscopy and machine learning to distinguish tau protein aggregates occurring as part of healthy functions from those occurring in disease.
FULL STORY AT Penn Medicine News →
The Pennsylvania Department of Health’s Commonwealth Universal Research Enhancement program will award a $3.5 million grant to Penn Medicine researchers and community partners to address the underrepresentation of Black adults in Alzheimer’s disease research.
FULL STORY AT Penn Medicine News →
In October, Fred Rahmanian, a 54-year-old husband and father of teenage triplets, tested positive for COVID-19. Late on November 11 he rapidly became so sick that doctors deemed him too unstable to even transport to a tertiary center for more advanced care, and his local hospital called for assistance from Penn’s Lung Rescue Mobile ECMO team, kicking off a long chain of Penn Medicine care that would see Rahmanian through to a remarkable recovery.
FULL STORY AT Penn Medicine News →
