Penn Medicine will offer free cancer screenings and risk assessments on Sunday, June 12 at a local health fair in Southwest Philadelphia at the William C. Bryant Promise Academy, 6001 Cedar Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19143., and mammographies from Jun 12 - 24, weekdays, for free, no insurance required, same location.
The behind-the-scenes story detailing the pursuit of a transformative cancer cure will unfold onscreen at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City this weekend. “Of Medicine and Miracles,” which will premiere during the renowned international festival, is an emotional journey, revealing decades of research – and one young patient’s family’s last hopes to save their daughter – that culminated in the world’s first CAR T-cell therapy, an approach that reprograms patients’ own immune cells to kill their cancer.
In August 2018, Penn Medicine and Grand View Health set a vision to develop collaborative services at Grand View Hospital in an effort to provide comprehensive care that kept patients closer to home. Four years later, the relationship is flourishing, with programs in Cancer (including Radiation Oncology), Trauma, Neurosciences, and Orthopaedics. Early this month, the two organizations signed a renewal of their strategic alliance for five more years.
A combination of chemotherapy with an immunotherapy meant to unleash the anticancer capacity of the immune system was effective against one of the hardest targets in cancer care, pancreatic cancer, in a national, randomized clinical trial led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and sponsored by the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.
With a vision to strategically bridge the gap between pediatric and adult care for individuals with Williams syndrome, a $25 million gift from Michael R. Armellino, W’61, will establish the Armellino Center of Excellence for Williams Syndrome to serve as a model for coordinated care across the lifespan, as well as to provide social support and pioneer research for individuals with the genetic condition.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has expanded its approval for a personalized cellular therapy developed at the University of Pennsylvania’s Abramson Cancer Center, this time for the treatment of adults with relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma (FL) after two or more lines of systemic therapy. The accelerated approval was granted today to Novartis for the chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy Kymriah® (tisagenlecleucel), making it the third indication for the nation’s first personalized cellular therapy for cancer. It remains the only CAR-T cell therapy approved for both adult and pediatric patients.
Penn Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), who together pioneered the research and development of the world’s first personalized cellular therapy for cancer — also known as CAR T cell therapy — have announced plans with Costa Rica’s CCSS, or the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (Social Security Program), to facilitate CAR T research in Costa Rica.
Researchers at the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania have found a way to identify lung cancer at the cellular level in real time during a biopsy, offering promise in the ability to detect the disease earlier and with more confidence. The research is published this week in Nature Communications.
The first bladder cancer drug targeting a cancer-driving gene mutation has been used relatively little despite its clear efficacy in a clinical trial, suggests a JAMA Oncology study led by the University of Pennsylvania. Researchers analyzed a large, nationwide database of cancer cases and found that bladder cancer patients potentially eligible for erdafitinib (Balversa) treatment, fewer than half had a record of being tested for the relevant gene mutation. Of those who were tested and found to have the mutation, fewer than half received the treatment.
A six-year study of nearly 100,000 women in Botswana has provided new evidence that relatively inexpensive daily diet supplementation of iron, folic acid and vitamin supplementation in pregnancy can reduce complications at birth.
The Penn Urban Health Lab, along with 13 community and faith-based organizations, will launch Deeply Rooted, a community-driven program to promote health equity and environmental justice in Black and brown neighborhoods in West and Southwest Philadelphia. Penn Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s (CHOP) Healthier Together Initiativeare the initial funders for Deeply Rooted, while the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society serves as the lead strategic greenspace implementation partner.
As COVID-19 necessitated the wider adoption of telemedicine, the rate of completed primary care visits for Black patients rose to the same level of non-Black patients, Penn Medicine study finds
Study finds that patients of orthopaedic and urologic procedures were more likely to dispose of their extra opioid tablets when they received kits in the mail to do so
Through a collaboration, a virtual “bridge clinic” will expand access to more extensive and personalized care for patients struggling with opioid use
Through analyzing human DNA samples in a large biobank, Penn Medicine researchers found associations between genetic variants with severe COVID and conditions involving blood clots and respiratory issues
A generous $10 million gift from the Abramson Family Foundation will help ensure Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center remains on the leading edge of cancer research and care. In recognition of the gift, the lobby of Penn's new Pavilion will be named in memory of the late Madlyn K. Abramson, who passed away in 2020.
Study Used Wearable Tech to Foster Activity in High-Risk, Diverse Populations
Robert H. Vonderheide, MD, DPhil, has been appointed to a second five-year term as director of the Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) at the University of Pennsylvania, following a highly successful tenure that saw 17 FDA approvals in oncology for therapies based on studies led or co-led by ACC investigators, high-impact basic and translational research discoveries, expansion of radiation oncology services to new sites across the Philadelphia region, and development of new methods for live tumor imaging during surgeries.
Already checked regularly for worsening symptoms via automated text messages, COVID-19 patients with pulse oximeters in a home monitoring program had similar recovery to those without them.
A TE-NMI in vitro and reinnervated muscle fiber after delayed nerve repair following TE-NMI excision. PHILADELPHIA— Researchers engineered the first injectable microtissue containing motor and sensory neurons encased in protective tissue, called tissue engineered neuromuscular interfaces (TE-NMIs). The TE-NMI neurons provide a source of axons to muscles in rats who suffered nerve injuries, and “babysit” the muscles to prevent degeneration and loss of function, while the damaged nerve regrows.
Black patients presenting at Emergency Departments (EDs) across the country with psychiatric complaints are 63 percent more likely to be chemically sedated than their white counterparts. But researchers also found that, at hospitals that serve a majority of Black patients, white patients were more likely to be chemically sedated for psychiatric complaints when compared to hospitals that predominantly serve white patients.
Penn Medicine’s hospitals have been honored by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation in the 15th edition of the Healthcare Equality Index released this week.
A new approach from Penn Medicine researchers could cut the time it takes to alter patients’ immune cells for infusion back into the body to find and attack cancer. The cell manufacturing process for this type of immunotherapy that was pioneered at Penn — CAR T cell therapy — typically takes nine to 14 days. In a pre-clinical study published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, a team in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania abbreviated this process and generated functional CAR T cells with enhanced anti-tumor potency in just 24 hours.
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells can be remarkably effective in treating leukemias and lymphomas, but there are no successful immunotherapies for neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) and gastrointestinal cancers (GICs) yet. Researchers at Penn Medicine have discovered that CAR-T cells directed to a tumor antigen, CDH17, a cell surface marker expressed on both NETs and GICs but also found on healthy tissues, eliminated GICs in several preclinical models without toxicity to normal tissues in multiple mouse organs, including the small intestine and colon. The results from this study, the first to target CDH17 in neuroendocrine tumors, suggest a new class of tumor associated antigens accessible to CAR-T cells in tumors but sequestered from CAR-T cells in healthy tissues.
The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center (PPMC) rank #15 in the United States and #53 globally on Newsweek’s “World’s Best Hospitals 2022,” which ranks 2,200 hospitals in 27 countries based on their consistent excellence, innovation and top talent. The combined enterprise of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center is the highest-ranked Pennsylvania hospital on the national list and the state’s only hospital to make the global list.
Tracing the impact of a single protein, Piezo1, Penn researchers found that restoring it in muscles affected by Duchenne muscular dystrophy could improve their ability to heal efficiently
Hepatitis screening rates climbed to 80 percent for patients whose doctors didn’t need to opt in to order a screening
Patients who undergo facial surgery think their surgical scars look worse than surgeons and independent observers do, according to a new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
A mouse study detailed the differences between the two forms of the protein PPARgamma, a target of thiazolidinedione, or glitazone, diabetes drugs, could cut out weight gain side effects
This past quarter, 33 projects from employees across Penn Medicine who volunteer to support their communities were awarded CAREs grants. Since 2012, the CAREs Grant program has provided more than $820,000 in funding to over 800 service initiatives across the regions Penn Medicine serves.
While gene mutations can lead to drug resistance, researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have identified an important, non-genetic adaptation that could also drive resistance to targeted therapy in T cell leukemia, a type of blood cell cancer.
With more than $12 million in new funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania will build on its preclinical research of an emerging form of radiation that provides ultra-fast doses—of under a second, compared to several minutes with conventional radiation—and shows promise of greater protection of normal tissue, thereby minimizing toxic effects to the body.
Combining the drug brequniar with remdesivir or molnupiravir — both approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency use — inhibited the SARS-CoV-2 virus in human respiratory cells and in mice, according to a new study published in Nature.
Developed to address the often-difficult task of coordinating care between teams, CareAlign was voluntarily adopted by 94 percent of inpatient services
Today, an analysis of these two patients published in Nature from the Penn researchers and colleagues from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia explains the longest persistence of CAR T cell therapy recorded to date against CLL, and shows that the CAR T cells remained detectable at least a decade after infusion, with sustained remission in both patients.
An inequity in the rate of Black patients making it to their primary care appointment after a hospitalization was eliminated after telemedicine became widely used amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a Penn study finds
An automated text messaging system informed by psychotherapeutic techniques achieved meaningful improvement in not just mental, but the physical health of patients with delayed surgeries
A mutation in the gene that causes fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP) doesn’t just cause extra bone growth but is tied to a problem in generating new muscle tissue after injury
Researchers at Penn Medicine have discovered a new, more effective method of preventing the body’s own proteins from treating nanomedicines like foreign invaders, by covering the nanoparticles with a coating to suppress the immune response that dampens the therapy’s effectiveness.
Preliminary findings from Penn Medicine in an ongoing first-in-human clinical trial examining the safety, tolerability and feasibility of chimeric antigen receptor macrophage (CAR-M) has helped to establish the viability of this innovative immunotherapy, which advances the trailblazing scientific discovery of CAR T cell therapy—also pioneered at Penn—for solid cancer tumors and offers a promising new strategy in the fight against cancer. Preliminary data from the Phase 1 multi-center clinical trial, which uses a novel, gene-based cancer therapy with CAR-engineered macrophages to target recurrent or metastatic HER2-positive solid tumors, was presented during the recent Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) annual meeting.
An experimental immunotherapy can temporarily reprogram patients’ immune cells to attack a specific target via only a single injection of messenger RNA (mRNA), similar to the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines, according to a new study from researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
With an $8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the next stage of the THINKER project — called THINKER-NEXT — will aim to provide a comprehensive view of the risks and benefits of transplanting HCV-infected kidneys into non-infected patients.
More than $2 million in grants from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will allow a Penn Medicine team to further develop infrastructure and clinical capacity to address antimicrobial resistance and infectious diseases in Botswana.
A potential new route to the diagnosis and treatment of ARDS comes from studying how neutrophils – the white blood cells responsible for detecting and eliminating harmful particles in the body – differentiate what materials to uptake by the material’s surface structure, and favor uptake of particles that exhibit “protein clumping.”
Penn Medicine has been awarded a prestigious seven-year, $14 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to promote organ transplantation for patients with end-stage renal disease who are currently on the waitlist for a kidney transplant. The team will launch a clinical trial harnessing synthetic chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells – a form of which was developed at Penn Medicine and became the first personalized cellular therapy for cancer – for use in patients for whom a compatible kidney cannot be found due to pre-existing antibodies against potential donors.
Making initiation of buprenorphine easy and timely was associated with a 25 percent increase in the likelihood of its use of treatment in Penn Medicine emergency departments
Twenty-five programs received Penn Medicine CAREs funding this past quarter from employees across Penn Medicine who volunteer their time and resources to strengthen the communities they serve.
GLP-1 RA treats diabetes and is linked to positive outcomes for heart disease patients, yet inequities were found in its use along racial, ethnic, and economic lines
Penn Medicine’s pop-up vaccine clinics and low-tech signups provided a road map for equitable mass vaccinations, at sites from schools to churches to hardware store parking lots. Now, the health system is planning for what’s next.
RSS
Medicine keyboard_arrow_right
Sciencekeyboard_arrow_right
Life keyboard_arrow_right
Business keyboard_arrow_right
Journal News keyboard_arrow_right
By Location keyboard_arrow_right
Meetings, Grants, and Events keyboard_arrow_right
