A. Thomas McLellan, an adjunct professor of psychology in Penn Medicine's Department of Psychiatry, has been nominated as the nation’s No. 2 drug czar. If confirmed by the Senate as the Deputy Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, McLellan will advise the president and coordinate anti-drug efforts.
McLellan is one of the nation’s top researchers on drug addiction and treatment, and has published more than 400 articles and chapters on those subjects. As a scientist at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Philadelphia in the 1980s, he led the development of two measures, known as the addiction severity index and treatment services review, that characterized multiple dimensions of substance abuse. The tools, used worldwide, help determine the type and duration of treatment.
In 1991, McLellan also founded the Philadelphia-based Treatment Research Institute, a nonprofit research and development organization dedicated to reducing the devastating effects of alcohol and other drug abuse on individuals, families and communities by employing scientific methods and disseminating evidence-based information.
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.
