The National Institutes of Health awarded a $6.5 million grant to the Medical Center to establish a center to improve treatment of autoimmune diseases.
Mohamad Rostami, M.D., Ph.D., professor of neurology and medicine, will be the director of the new Penn Center of Excellence for Autoimmune Disease, one of three NIH Centers of Excellence for auto-immune diseases in the country.
“Our goal for the center is to try to translate knowledge from basic science into clinical practice, focusing first on multiple sclerosis (MS) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE),” Rostami said.
Explaining why Penn received the grant, he credited the strong basic science in immunology going on at Penn and the Hospital’s “long-standing standard of excellence in the management of patients with various autoimmune disorders.”
Approximately a year ago, Rostami and other Penn researchers discovered how to prevent relapses of an animal version of MS in mice. The study will soon include human MS patients.
Novel plant-based approach to a better, cheaper GLP-1 delivery system
Research led by Penn Dental’s Henry Daniell investigates the use of a lettuce-based, plant-encapsulated delivery platform as a new oral delivery of two GLP-1 drugs previously approved by the FDA in injectable form.
No brain, no gain: Neuronal activity enhances benefits of exercise
Research led by Penn neuroscientist J. Nicholas Betley and collaborators finds that hypothalamic neurons are essential for translating physical exertion into endurance, potentially opening the door to exercise-mimicking therapies.
In honor of Valentine's Day, and as a way of fostering community in her Shakespeare in Love course, Becky Friedman took her students to the University Club for lunch one class period. They talked about the movie "Shakespeare in Love," as part of a broader conversation on how Shakespeare's works are adapted.
In Becky Friedman’s English course Shakespeare in Love, undergraduate students analyze language, genre, and adaptation in the Bard’s plays through the lens of love.
Beating the heat: Designing cooling for bodies in motion
Dorit Aviv, director of Weitzman’s Thermal Architecture Lab, studies how humans, technology, and design intersect, paving the way for the development of novel approaches to cooling people efficiently.
