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Health Sciences
Penn Medicine Authors Emphasize Importance of Clinically Actionable Results in Genetic Panel Testing for Breast Cancer
While advances in technology have made multigene testing, or “panel testing,” for genetic mutations that increase the risk of breast or other cancers an option, authors of a review published today in the New England Journal of Medicine say larger studies are needed in orde
Dean of Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine: Precision Medicine is “Personalized, Problematic, and Promising”
The rapidly emerging field of precision medicine is a “disruptive innovation” that offers the possibility of remarkably fine-tuned remedies to improve patient health while minimizing the risk of harmful side effects, says J. Larry Jameson, MD, PhD, dean of the Perelman School of Medicine and executive vice president of the University of Pennsylvania for the Health System, in this week’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Penn Study Links Better "Good Cholesterol" Function With Lower Risk of Later Heart Disease
HDL is the “good cholesterol” that helps remove fat from artery walls, reversing the process that leads to heart disease. Yet recent drug trials and genetic studies suggest that simply pushing HDL levels higher doesn’t necessarily reduce the risk of heart disease. Now, a team led by scientists from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has shown in a large, forward-looking epidemiological study that a person’s HDL function—the efficiency of HDL molecules at removing cholesterol—may be a better measure of coronary heart disease risk and a better target for heart-protecting drugs.
Attitudes about Complementary and Alternative Medicine Predict Use Among Cancer Patients, Penn's Abramson Cancer Center Finds
A cancer patient’s expectations about the benefits of complementary and alternative (CAM) and their perceived access to CAM therapies are likely to guide whether or not they will use those options, according to a new study published ahead of print in the journal CANCER from researchers at Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
Penn Medicine Researcher Receives Distinguished Investigator Award
Kevin Volpp, MD, PhD, was presented with the 2015 Association for Clinical and Translational Science (ACTS) Distinguished Investigator Award for Career Achievement and Contribution to Clinical and Translational Science for translation from clinical use into public benefit and policy at the organization’s sixth annual meeting last month in Washington, D.C.
Penn’s Kang Ko Has a Promising Future in Academic Dentistry
By Madeleine Stone @themadstone Kang Ko never planned to become a typical dentist. Long before he came to the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine to pursue his degree, he fell in love with teaching and research.
Penn Medicine: How the Immune System Controls the Human Biological Clock in Times of Infection
An important link between the human body clock and the immune system has relevance for better understanding inflammatory and infectious diseases, discovered collaborators at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Trinity College, Dublin.
Penn Scientists Receive Grant for Neuroendocrine Cancer Immunotherapy Research
Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania received a $400,000 grant from the Caring for Carcinoid Foundation (CFCF), a non-profit that funds research for carcinoid, pancreatic, and related neuroendocrine cancers (NETS), to investigate the use of an experimental gene therapy that engineers immune cells to attack cancers.
Penn Researchers Show That Mental ‘Map’ and ‘Compass’ Are Two Separate Systems
If you have a map, you can know where you are without knowing which way you are facing. If you have a compass, you can know which way you're facing without knowing where you are. Animals from ants to mice to humans use both kinds of information to reorient themselves in familiar places, but how they determine this information from environmental cues is not well understood.
Helping Pets, Helping People
In a North Philadelphia rowhome, four students from the School of Veterinary Medicine are examining Pebbles, a friendly cocker spaniel. She’s a little overweight but otherwise healthy. “She has a great hairdo,” fourth-year student Hannah MacAyeal tells Billy, Pebbles’ owner.
In the News
Philadelphia Gay News
UPenn hosts free online panel for LGBTQ+ workplace inclusion
The Eidos LGBTQ+ Health Initiative, led by José Bauermeister and Jessica Halem of the School of Nursing, will host a free online panel in April on the integration of LGBTQ+ people in the workforce.
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The New Yorker
How to die in good health
PIK Professor Ezekiel Emanuel says that incessantly preparing for old age mistakes a long life for a worthwhile one.
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Philadelphia Inquirer
Mayor Parker’s plan to ‘remove the presence of drug users’ from Kensington raises new questions
Shoshana Aronowitz of the School of Nursing and Ashish Thakrar of the Perelman School of Medicine comment on the lack of specificity in Philadelphia’s plan to remove drug users from Kensington and on the current state of drug treatment in the city.
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WHYY (Philadelphia)
Homeward bound: When a Penn Medicine nurse was diagnosed with uterine cancer, she turned to the service dogs she helped to train
A profile highlights Maria Wright of Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health, from her volunteer work connecting people with service dogs to her cancer diagnosis and her own journey applying for a service dog.
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Philadelphia Inquirer
How many patients would recommend their Philly-area hospital to family and friends? Check your local hospital
The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania has been named one of the most recommended acute-care facilities by patients in the Philadelphia area.
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