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A new $3 million grant to support a clinical trial evaluating a combination therapy to prevent triple-negative breast cancer from recurring, which will be led in the clinic by Angela DeMichele, MD, MSCE, the Alan and Jill Miller Professor in Breast Cancer Excellence in the Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) at the University of Pennsylvania and co-director of the ACC’s 2-PREVENT Translational Center of Excellence. The grant was awarded by Stand Up 2 Cancer (SU2C) in partnership with Genentech, and will be administered by the organization’s scientific partner, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

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Kidneys from donors who were infected with the Hepatitis C virus (HCV) function just as well as uninfected kidneys throughout the first year following transplantation, according to a new Penn Medicine study.

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The University of Pennsylvania and Novartis have concluded their seven-year research and development alliance, which resulted in the world’s first approved gene therapy for cancer. They will continue to work together on a more narrow CAR T cell therapy clinical trials portfolio.

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From improving outcomes in children with brain cancer to lowering the risk of damage to the brainstem in children with central nervous system tumors, a pair of new studies published today add to the growing body of research showing the potential benefits of proton therapy.

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A new Penn Medicine study, published in Nature, revealed, in mice, that CART T-cell therapy may now be harnessed to treat heart disease. Researchers used genetically modified T cells to target and remove activated fibroblasts that contribute to the development of cardiac fibrosis.

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A clinical trial using a behaviorally designed gamification program found competition worked better than support or collaboration to increase daily step counts

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While numbers of black and Hispanic physicians have increased, Penn study shows the physician workforce does not represent the shifting demographics of the U.S. population.

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Virginia M.Y. Lee, PhD, the John H. Ware 3rd Professor in Alzheimer’s Research in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research at the University of Pennsylvania, will receive the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.

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Patients in the United States and Canada are seven times as likely as those in Sweden to receive a prescription for opioid medications after surgery, according to a new multi-institutional study led by researchers from Penn Medicine.

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A study showed that choice of screening options alone does not impact screening rates, but how the choice is offered can alter patient decision-making.

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Blocking a kinase known as CDK7 sets off a chain reaction that results in the death of prostate cancer cells that have spread and are resistant to standard therapies

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Giving trauma patients with severe blood loss the hormone arginine vasopressin (AVP) cut the volume of blood products required to stabilize them by half, according to results of a new, first-of-its-kind clinical trial from Penn Medicine. The authors say the study is particularly important for the treatment of patients with gun-related injuries. Each year, there are over 100,00 firearm-related injuries with over 36,000 deaths.

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The new Penn PET Addiction Center of Excellence—funded by a five-year, $8.9 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse—will be the first of its kind dedicated to the use of PET imaging to investigate the neurobiology of people suffering from opioid use disorders.

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Having simple text conversations with patients one week before they are scheduled for a colonoscopy dramatically decreased the “no-show” rates.

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French organ transplant centers are far more likely to accept “lower-rated” kidneys, like those from older organ donors, than centers in the United States, according to a study published today in JAMA Internal Medicine.

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MRI scans on 31 individuals showed that vaping temporarily impacts blood vessel function in healthy people.

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Advancements in genetic testing mean ongoing problems need to be addressed.

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A new study from Penn researchers has identified a key regulator of a process that controls skin regeneration, which can control whether cells turn into a common skin cancer.

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Castleman Disease patients who do not respond to the only drug currently approved by the FDA may have another option that targets a specific pathway called PI3K/Akt/mTOR

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This post is part of a year-long online campaign highlighting #WomenofPenn. The campaign, developed by FOCUS on Women’s Health and Leadership and Penn Medicine Communications promotes the work being done by women at Penn Medicine and aims to inspire early-career women in academic medicine through the examples of successful women role models.

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A crucial signaling pathway that can tell the immune system to fight off cancer can also be co-opted by cancer cells to put the brakes on the immune system.

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Researchers find fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET is a better indicator of cognitive performance when compared to PET scans that detect amyloid protein.

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PARS is an all-female workshop led by clinicians, scientists, and medical students for high school students interested in exploring the world of health care and medicine, particularly reproductive science.

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A rare, short-lived population of immune cells in the bloodstream may serve as ‘periscopes’ to monitor immune status via lymph nodes deep inside the body.

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Researchers describe a new way to form an essential part of an artificial chromosome, called the centromere, by bypassing the biological requirements needed to form a natural one.

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Katherine L. Nathanson, MD, deputy director of the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania and the Pearl Basser Professor for BRCA-Related Research in Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, has been awarded a $3 million research grant from the Gray Foundation.

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As cells age, their ability to shed harmful refuse declines. New research findings suggest that the deterioration of autophagy in aged neurons—cells that never replicate and are as old as the bodies they inhabit—could be a risk factor for a suite of neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s.

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Music is a viable alternative to sedative medications in reducing patient anxiety prior to an anesthesia procedure, according to a Penn Medicine study published today in the journal Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine.

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The alliance between Penn Medicine and Grand View Health will expand access to orthopaedic care for patients in Pennsylvania's Bucks and Montgomery counties and their surrounding areas.

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Researchers at Penn Medicine surveyed more than 18,000 adults enrolled in a commercial weight management program, and found that participants who internalized weight bias the most tended to be younger, female, have a higher body mass index, and have an earlier onset of their weight struggle.

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Treating metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab after they’ve completed locally ablative therapy almost tripled the median progression-free survival compared to the historical average.

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César de la Fuente, PhD, has joined the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania as a Presidential Assistant Professor in the departments of Psychiatry and Microbiology, in addition to the department of Bioengineering at Penn.

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One in 10 people with dilated cardiomyopathy were born with a mutation in the TTN gene, but – until now – it has been unclear whether everyone with these mutations will inevitably develop the condition. Researchers found that 95 percent of patients who had the genetic mutations did not have heart disease.

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Researchers have identified a new pathway that can cause cancer to grow too quickly and die from the stress.

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Treating prostate cancer with higher doses of proton therapy over a shorter amount of time leads to similar outcomes when compared to standard dose levels and treatments and is safe for patients

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All six of Penn Medicine’s hospitals will be recognized as 2019 leaders in LGBTQ healthcare equality by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation.

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Introducing a default physician order — a “nudge” — into electronic health records (EHRs) cut the use of unnecessary daily imaging in half during palliative radiation therapy sessions for patients with advanced cancer

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Penn Medicine researchers found that over a five-year period in Philadelphia, use of evidence-based therapies—practices backed by scientific data showing that symptoms improve in response to treatment, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)—increased only modestly, despite the city and researchers’ substantial efforts to showcase the value of these approaches and to provide training to community clinicians.

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A simple set of decision-support tools combined with institutional buy-in can help increase the number of cancer patients who engage in treatment to help them quit tobacco, data from researchers in the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania show.

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Shortening the length of rotations in a medical intensive care unit (MICU) from the traditional 14-consecutive day schedule to only seven days helps mitigate burnout among critical care physicians, according to a new Penn Medicine pilot study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

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Many elderly patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC)—who are often underrepresented in clinical trials to treat the kidney cancer—are seeing overall survival benefits from treatment with targeted therapies, according to a new study from Penn Medicine researchers published this month in JAMA Network Open. Analyzing 13 years of data on Medicare patients, the study found that the patients who received targeted therapies were more medically complex than those who received the older, more toxic treatments that were available earlier in the study period, indicating that newer treatments are offering hope to more people.

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College affirmative action bans may adversely affect the health of underrepresented minority high school students, according to the results of a new study from researchers at Penn Medicine. Between 1996 and 2013, nine U.S. states banned consideration of race and ethnicity in college admissions. A new study in PLOS Medicine shows that the action bans had unanticipated effects, specifically resulting in increased rates of smoking among minority high school students

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Transitions are a hallmark of life, and so there is a transition during early development when an embryo undergoes biochemical changes, switching from being controlled by maternal molecules to being governed by its own genome. For the first time, researchers have found in an embryo that activation of its genome does not happen all at once, instead it follows a specific pattern controlled primarily by the various sizes of its cells.

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Analyzing language shows that identifying certain groups of words significantly improves upon predicting some medical conditions in patients

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In cancer and chronic infections immune balance can be disrupted, resulting in immune system dysfunction or “exhaustion.” An important protein called TOX, which varies in amount in different immune cell types, controls the identity of the cells that become exhausted. With this knowledge, investigators now have a way to accurately identify immune cells that are exhausted in a tumor or site of an infection and improve the effectiveness of patients’ immune response to treatment.

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Issues like age or existing arthritis may preclude patients from participating in clinical studies for new therapies that could benefit them

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A new Penn Medicine study, published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine, revealed that patients with untreated white coat hypertension not only have a heightened risk of heart disease, but they are twice as likely to die from heart disease than people with normal blood pressure.

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To treat large gaps in long bones, like the femur, that often eventually result in amputation, researchers developed a process that partially recreates the bone growth process that occurs before birth.

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From understanding the genetics of cancer cells to improving cellular therapies and incorporating new methods of radiation therapy, a $12 million grant will help researchers at the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania pursue the next generation of cancer treatments.

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Growing up in poverty and experiencing traumatic events like a bad accident or sexual assault were linked to accelerated puberty and brain maturation, abnormal brain development, and greater mental health disorders, such as depression, anxiety, and psychosis, according to a new Penn Medicine study published this week in JAMA Psychiatry.