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Penn experts will present research findings that could come to define new standards of cardiovascular diagnostics and care at this weekend's conference of the American College of Cardiology, the foremost professional society representing heart specialists throughout the world. These experts will gather beginning this weekend in Chicago to present and discuss the latest advances in cardiovascular medicine, science and education.

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Three Leading Institutions Launch Center for Vaccine Ethics and Policy. U Penn Center for Bioethics, The Wistar Institute Vaccine Center, and The Vaccine Education Center of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Join Forces around Vaccines.

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A new study by Univ. of Pennsylvania School of Medicine shows, for the first time in humans, that ventilators combined with diaphragm disuse contributes to muscle atrophy in the diaphragm in as little as 18hrs. Muscle atrophy in the diaphragm is a major contributor of why patients who have undergone prolonged mechanical ventilation often have difficulty breathing after being removed from the ventilator.

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Pennsylvania Hospital has launched "Expecting the Best," a program to aid women in properly managing their diabetes through pregnancy, from pre-conception to delivery. The collaborative program teams high risk obstetricians with endocrinologists and experts from the American Diabetes Association-accredited Diabetes Education Center.

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Researchers have provided, for the first time, a detailed look at the molecular pathways underlying sleep apnea. The team found that in an animal model of sleep apnea poorly folded proteins accumulate in one compartment of a muscle nerve cell, which, under certain conditions, tells a cell to heal itself or destroy itself.

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In an effort to foster dialogues about health and healthcare services in Philadelphia's Southeast Asian immigrant community, leading local healthcare institutions have joined with community and media to crack the knowledge and language barriers that often prevent this population from accessing preventive and other health services.

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At a time when several U.S. health insurers have announced plans to discontinue payment for use of the sedative propofol during most screening colonoscopies, physicians at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered that an alternative way to administer the drug could both save millions of health care dollars and provide a safer way to deliver optimal pain relief.

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Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have demonstrated that living human nerve cells can be engineered into a network that could one day be used for transplants to repair damaged to the nervous system.

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Researchers have demonstrated that a bacterial toxin from the common bacterium Staphylococcus aureus shuts down the control mechanism of the tunnel, called an ion channel, in immune cell membranes. The work has Implications for finding new ways to fight MRSA.

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Researchers have discovered that introns, or junk DNA to some, associated with RNA are an important molecular guide to making nerve-cell electrical channels. They hope to relate this knowledge to understanding the molecular underpinnings of memory and learning, as well as components of cognitive dysfunction resulting from neurological disease.

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The US Senate Special Committee on Aging held a hearing yesterday in Washington, DC, on older Americans and the significant barriers they face in exercising their right to vote. Jason Karlawish, MD, associate professor of Medicine and Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, testified before the Committee, citing results from a series of his studies examining voting rights for the elderly.

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Minority and low-income patients are less likely than those who are white or more well off to agree to post-surgery epidural pain relief, according to new research from physicians at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The study, published recently in the journal Anesthesia and Analgesia, examined how race, economic and educational status may influence health care choices when access to care isn't a factor.

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Researchers have provided a new strategy for designing drugs that target resistant Type A influenza viral strains by solving the three-dimensional structure of a viral protein called the M2 proton channel. This protein is the molecular receptor for one class of influenza drugs.

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University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine researchers are recruiting healthy, HIV-negative adults to participate in a phase I clinical trial of an experimental HIV vaccine called PENNVAX-B, a DNA-based vaccine which is made using synthetic DNA-based HIV genes.

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The entire January issue of NeuroSignals is devoted to describing neurodegenerative disease research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Health System.

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Pennsylvania Hospital's Asian Behavioral Health program Celebrates 20 Years of Helping our Asian Community Come to Grips with Depression, Bipolar and Behavioral Disorders.

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Pennsylvania Hospital's bariatric surgery program has been designated by the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) as a Center of Excellence. The designation recognizes the safety, efficiency and overall positive results of the bariatric surgical team at Pennsylvania Hospital. Pennsylvania Hospital is part of the University of Pennsylvania Health System.

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Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine discovered that proteins carrying chemical cargo in nerve cells react differently when exposed to the tau protein, which plays an important role in Alzheimer's disease.

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Benjamin S. Abella, MD, MPhil, Clinical Research Director of Penn's Center for Resuscitation Science and Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, says bystanders can play a critical role in saving lives by performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation during the 150,000 cardiac arrests that occur each year outside of hospitals in the United States.

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University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine researchers have answered long-running questions about the way that anesthetics act on the body, by showing that the cellular pathway for emerging from anesthesia is different from the one that drugs take to put patients to sleep during operations. The findings will be published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Researchers report that the round worm has a sleep-like state, joining most of the animal kingdom in displaying this physiology. This research has implications for explaining the evolution and purpose of sleep and sleep-like states in animals, as well as identifying drug targets for sleep disorders.

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University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine researchers found that patients who received telephone mentoring from a trained "peer coach" were two times more likely to keep their first colonoscopy appointment than those who received an educational brochure about the procedure in the mail or received no peer or literature support.

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Researchers have demonstrated for the first time a link between the TRAIL's cell death receptor and cancer susceptibility. Unexpectedly, they also found a connection "“ via TRAIL "“ between inflammation and cancer susceptibility.

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A new brain imaging study from UPenn's Abramson Cancer Center shows that cigarette cravings in smokers who are deprived of nicotine are linked with increased activation in specific regions of the brain. Using a novel method of measuring brain blood flow developed at Penn, this study is the first to show how abstinence from nicotine produces brain activation patterns that relate to urges to smoke.

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Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered how low-oxygen conditions can worsen chronic kidney disease (CKD). The key player is a protein called hypoxia-inducible-factor (HIF-1) that, as its name suggests, is active when the kidney does not get enough oxygen, a condition known as hypoxia.

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Researchers from the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania reported today that students who participate in high school sports or individual physical activity are less likely to smoke than their classmates.

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Researchers at University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and other sites have found that doctors and other health care providers can better their chances of identifying and helping victims of domestic violence by changing the way they ask patients questions.

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Transfusion-free Medicine for Jehovah's Witnesses and Patients Wary of Blood Transfusions was pioneered at Pennsylvania Hospital Center for Bloodless Medicine and Surgery in Philadelphia. Bloodless medicine practices have shown outcomes that can benefit the entire patient community, including shorter hospital stays, and the elimination of transfusion-related complications. Pennsylvania Hospital is part of the University of Pennsylvania Health System.

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Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine report that older adults with diabetes and depression are half as likely to die over a 5-year period when they receive depression care management than depressed patients with diabetes who do not receive depression care management. The first known study to examine the relationship between diabetes and mortality in a depression intervention trial appears in the December issue of Diabetes Care.

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Dr. Charles Bridges, Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center and Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Pennsylvania Hospital has received a $3 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to expand upon his cutting-edge research into "molecular cardiac surgery"-- developed by Dr. Bridges and his team, a unique approach to gene therapy for the heart.

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In the future, patients who arrive at a hospital Emergency Department complaining of chest pain may be diagnosed with a sophisticated CT scan. If the diagnosis is negative, the patient can go home"”and the total time at the hospital will be much shorter than it is today.

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Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and other study sites have found that transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) "“ a non-invasive technique that excites neurons in the brain via magnetic pulses passed through the scalp "“ is a safe and effective, non-drug treatment with minimal side effects for patients with major depression who have tried other treatment options without benefit.

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Researchers from the Abramson Cancer Center announced today that findings from two large, international clinical trials show unprecedented survival for patients with multiple myeloma, a cancer that occurs in the blood-making cells of bone marrow.

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Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered that using an immune system gene to enhance a vaccine used to study HIV in macaque monkeys provides the animals with greater protection against simian HIV (SHIV) than an unmodified vaccine.

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It's well known that the body's energy levels cycle on a 24-hour, or circadian, schedule, and that this metabolic process is fueled by oxygen. Now, researchers at Penn have found that a protein called Rev-erb coordinates the daily cycles of oxygen-carrying heme molecules to maintain the body's correct metabolism.

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Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine report that older adults today are much more likely to suffer from disability than those 10 years ago. This research "“ the first to track effects of obesity on disability over time "“ appears in the November 7th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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In an article appearing in the current issue of Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, experts from the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics and Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics review the controversy surrounding the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine debate, and its effects on ethical and public health issues.

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The PENN Medicine Department of Communications invites you to discover the latest in cancer research, treatment and resources. This informational luncheon and seminar features expert researchers and clinicians from the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

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Pennsylvania Hospital nutrition counselor, Debra DeMille, M.S., R.D. offers the following healthy eating tips to ensure a merry holiday season.

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Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have found that emotional well-being is not an independent factor affecting the prognosis of patients with head and neck cancers.

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Cardiac researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have received a $2.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to pioneer studies in cardiovascular disease management and participate in a novel collaboration.

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Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have found that professional welders who work in enclosed spaces with poor ventilation may be at risk for loss of sense of smell.

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Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have created the first animal model of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) caused by a mutation known to produce disease in people, an important first step in developing treatments.

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Researchers have shed new light on how Kaposi's Sarcoma-associated Herpes Virus subverts normal cell machinery to cause cancer. A KSHV protein called latency-associated nuclear antigen (LANA) helps the virus hide out from the immune system in infected cells. When LANA takes the place of other proteins that control cell growth, it can cause uncontrolled cell replication.

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More than the two thirds of the women in a national survey say that they are interested in suppressing their menstrual periods but many of them aren't sure if it's safe. Yet when physicians are polled, 97 percent say that continuous oral contraceptive therapy to suppress menstruation is, in fact, medically safe and acceptable.

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In the first clinical trial of its kind, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Abramson Cancer Center will lead a nationwide test of anti-cancer drug combinations that target blood vessel growth in patients with advanced kidney cancer. Penn scientists will also use an experimental imaging technique to measure the effectiveness of the treatments.

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Anyone who has ever tried to set up an internet account or wants to make a purchase on a company's website, has experienced the "˜default option,' an event or condition that will be set in place if no alternative is actively chosen. In an opinion article in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers argue that these concepts applied by marketers should also be used by the medical community to benefit patients.

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Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) have developed a framework to help hospital managers, physicians, and nurses handle the tough challenges of implementing health information technology by directly addressing the unintended consequences that undermine safety and quality.

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As the school year gets underway, common back-to-school activities like reading the blackboard and completing homework assignments may reveal children's vision problems.

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The researchers propose to screen smokers, non-smokers and those regularly in contact with second-hand smoke for a variety of biochemical markers. These studies will provide important base-line data for subsequent studies relating cigarette smoke exposure to incidence and genetic susceptibility to tobacco-related diseases.