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Across the country, there are 58 Organ Procurement Organizations (OPO), which are responsible for recovering and distributing organs and tissues for life-saving and life-enhancing transplants. Each OPO is designated to serve a specific geographic area and works with the transplant centers in their area to match donors with recipients. With more than 117,000 people awaiting a lifesaving organ transplant, these OPOs work very hard to identify as many organ donors as possible to help save these lives. But according to a study published today in the American Journal of Transplantation, there seem to be significant differences in the results of these efforts.

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Genetically modified “hunter” T cells successfully migrated to and penetrated a deadly type of brain tumor known as glioblastoma (GBM) in a clinical trial of the new therapy, but the cells triggered an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment and faced a complex mutational landscape that will need to be overcome to better treat this aggressive cancer, Penn Medicine researchers report in a new study this week in Science Translational Medicine.

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Three new gene variants, found in a genome wide association study of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), point to the brain’s immune cells in the onset of the disorder. These genes encode three proteins that are found in microglia, cells that are part of the brain’s injury response system.

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More than a third of Americans don’t get enough sleep, and growing evidence suggests it’s not only taking a toll on their physical health through heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and/or other conditions, but hurting their mental health as well.

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In a study that could explain why some breast cancers are more aggressive than others, researchers say they now understand how cancer cells force normal cells to act like viruses – allowing tumors to grow, resist treatment, and spread. The virus mimic is detected in the blood of cancer patients, particularly in cases of an aggressive type known as triple-negative breast cancer. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania say cracking the code of how this process works opens up the possibility of targeting this mechanism for treatment.

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A newly identified biomarker panel could pave the way to earlier detection and better treatment for pancreatic cancer. Currently over 53,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer -- the fourth leading cause of cancer death -- every year. The blood biomarkers correctly detected pancreatic cancer in blood samples from patients at different stages of their disease.

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The idea that better decisions can be made simply by guiding people to them is the principle behind the Penn Medicine’s Nudge Unit, which officially launched last year. Looking to the year ahead, projects both on-going and up-coming are using some of the most basic principles of behavioral economics – gamification, financial incentives, and default settings – to tackle costly health interventions and some of the leading causes of death and other health risks, including statin and opioid use, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and readmissions.

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While discussions on stewardship are often focused on fighting infection among the sickest patients, those aren’t the only people taking these drugs. Data from the CDC shows the average dermatology provider wrote 669 antibiotic prescriptions in 2014, the most recent year for which data are available. That is, by far, the highest average of any provider specialty. For some perspective, the next closest group was primary care physicians, who wrote an average of 483 prescriptions per provider. It begs the question of whether dermatology should be under the microscope when it comes to stewardship.

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A recent study at the University of Pennsylvania found that, not only did commercial brain training with Lumosity™ have no effect on decision-making, it also had no effect on cognitive function beyond practice effects on the training tasks.

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Cancer patients in the United States may be unable to access care at the nation’s top hospitals due to narrow insurance plan coverage – leaving patients to choose between lower premiums or access to higher-quality cancer care. A new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania shows common, so-called “narrow network” insurance plans – lower-premium plans with reduced access to certain providers – are more likely to exclude doctors associated with National Cancer Institute (NCI)-Designated Cancer Centers.

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Advance directives are the primary tool for individuals to communicate their wishes if they become incapacitated and are unable to make their own health care decisions, particularly near the end of life. Despite this, 63 percent of American adults have not completed one, reports the most comprehensive study to date on the subject from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania this week in the July issue of Health Affairs.

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Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have found evidence that the most difficult C. difficile cases, known as multiple recurring C. difficile infections (mrCDI), are rapidly becoming more common.

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“Are you unhappy with your environment?” asked the flyer for a Town Hall meeting at the Faith Temple Holy Church in Chester, PA, held earlier this month. Residents gathered for a Q&A with environmental scientists, Rev. Horace Stand, church pastor and founder of the Chester Environmental Partnership (CEP), and long-time Chester residents and CEP members Dolores and John Shelton.

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A research group in the division of Gastroenterology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has received a National Cancer Institute grant to extend a Barrett's Esophagus translational research network with Columbia University and the Mayo Clinic until 2022.

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In the fruit fly, social isolation leads to sleep loss, which in turn leads to cellular stress and the activation of a defense mechanism called the unfolded protein response.

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Unlike traditional clinical rotations abroad for medical residents, the University of Pennsylvania has created an equal education exchange with Guatemala's INDERMA program, meaning that not only do Penn Dermatology residents spend time in Guatemala, but INDERMA residents come to Philadelphia for clinical rotations and lectures.

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A new drug shows promise in its ability to target one of the most common and sinister mutations of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), according to researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center. The Fms-like tyrosine kinase 3 (FLT3) gene mutation is a known predictor of AML relapse and is associated with short survival. In a first-in-human study, researchers treated relapsed patients with gilteritinib, an FLT3 inhibitor, and found it was a well-tolerated drug that led to frequent and more-sustained-than-expected clinical responses, almost exclusively in patients with this mutation.

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— Jorge Henao-Mejia, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, has been recognized by The Pew Charitable Trusts as one of its 22 national Pew Scholars in Biomedical Sciences.

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The use of topical antibiotics can dramatically alter communities of bacteria that live on the skin, while the use of antiseptics has a much smaller, less durable impact. The study, conducted in mice in the laboratory of Elizabeth Grice, PhD, an assistant professor of Dermatology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, is the first to show the long-term effects of antimicrobial drugs on the skin microbiome.

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The first two-part episode of Lauren Kelly, MD’s podcast, “When I Die, Let Me Live,” is not always an easy listen — but that’s kinda the point. Kelly, who graduated from the Perelman School of Medicine earlier this year, aims to present the listener with firsthand stories from patients, families, and caretakers dealing with the myriad physical, mental, emotional, and moral complexities of end-of-life care.

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Overcrowding of intensive care units (ICUs) is a growing problem in American hospitals, often resulting in the need to place patients in alternate intensive care units within a hospital. Research has indicated that these “ICU boarder” patients — for example, a brain surgery patient staying in a cardiac ICU — have worse outcomes as a result of this alternate placement, and now, a new study suggests one reason for these worse outcomes is that ICU boarders, compared to non-boarders, appear to get markedly less attention from doctors and other caregivers.

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A new, high-resolution view of the structure of Hsp104 (heat shock protein 104), a natural yeast protein nanomachine with six subunits, may show news ways to dismantle harmful protein clumps in disease.

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Penn winners among just 24 total recipients

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The drug lenvatinib can significantly improve overall survival rates in a group of thyroid cancer patients whose disease is resistant to standard radioiodine treatment, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The study, published today in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, is the first to show lenvatinib has a definitive impact on overall survival (OS). Researchers found OS improves in patients older than 65 years of age and that the drug is well-tolerated.

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Several critical periods over a human life span – including before birth -- determine when individuals are the most susceptible to environmental toxicants. Researchers will gather at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania this Monday to discuss these “Windows of Susceptibility."

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Researchers detail a molecule that acts as a molecular pilot light required to turn on the brown fat furnace. Brown fat burns sugar and fat to produce radiant heat in the body. These cells are of interest because some of the sugar and fat they burn is stored in the body and might otherwise lead to increases in white fat, the form that increases in obesity.

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Nurses in neonatal intensive care units (NICU) spend close to 13,000 hours every year managing breast milk for the nearly 500,000 babies across the United States that require special and often critical care in the first months of their lives. That’s 13,000 hours (the annual equivalent of six full-time nurses) spent on just what these nurses call “bartending” – not feeding, just monitoring, labeling, printing, and logging infant-specific nutritional management. Enter Keriton, a new breast milk management system designed for nurses and new moms, by nurses and new moms, that the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania’s Intensive Care Nursery (ICN) began testing last month. Unlike other apps that are available to only moms or to only nurses, Keriton is the first integrated system that operates on a HIPAA-compliant and secure server, allowing for “process automation” – meaning, moms use the app to log and track how much and when they are pumping, and the information is automatically syn

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An analysis of data from five major studies of testicular cancer has identified new genetic locations that could be susceptible to inherited testicular germ cell tumors. The findings, which researchers call a success story for genome mapping, could help doctors understand which men are at the highest risk of developing the disease and signal them to screen those patients.

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As the pace of drug approvals accelerates and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) faces potential budget cuts, a new research design from Perelman School of Medicine scientists offers a new way to successfully assess safety of newly approved drugs, as well as drugs that have been on the market for a long time and have had a marked rise in their use. The study, published in the July issue of the journal Epidemiology, offers benefits over typically used randomized clinical trials, as such studies are often too small to identify rare side effects or may be performed in a group of patients who do not take other types of medications or have other conditions that could skew the drug's effect in a broader group following approval. Also first-in-class drugs may not have an applicable comparator drug, and traditional follow-up studies may give inaccurate results if those who take a new drug are different from those who took the comparator drug.

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Researchers from Penn Medicine have developed a new urine test, called UrSure, to monitor adherence to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in order to help curb the HIV epidemic and prevent high-risk populations from being infected with HIV.

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Penn researchers studying an inherited disorder of skin, hair follicles, nails, sweat glands, and teeth called hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia (HED) have identified a mechanism that may also be disrupted in male pattern baldness, a more common condition.

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Women pay an average of 40 percent more than men for minoxidil foams – a hair loss remedy most commonly known as Rogaine – according to a new analysis from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The price difference appears despite the fact that the men’s and women’s version of the products – which are branded and marketed differently -- contain the same drug strength and inactive ingredients.

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People who suffer from insomnia are three times more likely to report thoughts of suicide and death during the past 30 days than those without the condition, reports a new meta-analysis from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The study is the first to control for depression and anxiety and evaluate in-depth the relationship between the broadly defined terms of insomnia and suicidality to reveal trends that may inform future targeted treatment for some of the 32 million individuals struggling with insomnia.

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One of the newest entities with the Penn Institute for Biomedical Informatics, the Health Language Processing Lab combines social media content with other sources of health information in a unique way aimed at understanding how people use language to communicate health needs.

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Penn Medicine has been named #7 on Forbes magazine’s annual “Best Employers in America” list ranking mid-sized and large employers across the nation. Other organizations listed in the top ten include Costco, Google, and REI, placing Penn Medicine among some of the most well-known and influential companies in the nation.

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Ilene Rosen, MD, MSCE, an associate professor of Clinical Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and program director of the Penn Sleep Fellowship, has been elected the 32nd president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) board of directors. Rosen will serve a one-year term as the Academy’s 2017-2018 president, beginning the role on June 5 during SLEEP 2017, the 31st annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC (APSS) in Boston.

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In a new study published recently in Tobacco Control, Penn researchers found that health warning labels that include images or Pictorial Warning Labels (PWLs) are more effective in gaining and holding the attention of smokers when the image and the text convey similar risks.

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Six years ago an international team of physician scientists known as BRCA-TAC led a charge to advance clinical testing of the PARP inhibitor olaparib in cancer patients with known inherited mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2. This weekend during the plenary session of the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting (abstract LBA4), that push comes full circle with the presentation of results of the phase III OlympiAD trial demonstrating for the first time that olaparib is superior to chemotherapy in patients with BRCA-related advanced breast cancer.

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New findings suggest eating late at night could be more dangerous than you think. Compared to eating earlier in the day, prolonged delayed eating can increase weight, insulin and cholesterol levels, and negatively affect fat metabolism, and hormonal markers implicated in heart disease, diabetes and other health problems, according to results from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

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David F. Dinges, PhD, chief of the division of Sleep and Chronobiology, and director of the Unit for Experimental Psychiatry in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has received the Nathaniel Kleitman Distinguished Service Award from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

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Today’s uncertain health care climate is a source of confusion and anxiety for many; from older adults with pre-existing conditions to employers trying to navigate the ever-changing rules and regulations, questions about what’s next for health care in the United States are everywhere.

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Researchers have discovered, in the mouse brain, that a key metabolic enzyme works directly within the nucleus of neurons to turn genes on or off when new memories are being established.

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The Penn Orphan Disease Center will collaborate with Pulse Infoframe Inc., a medical informatics company, to develop rare disease patient registries aimed at enabling international collaboration to better understand these diseases, as well as accelerate and improve clinical studies to develop new therapies.

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Combining the kinase inhibitor ibrutinib with an investigational personalized cellular therapy known as CTL119 can lead to complete remission in patients with high-risk chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center (ACC). The team will present the results from its pilot study of this combination therapy during the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting (Abstract # 193355).

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A novel vaccine therapy can generate immune responses in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCCa), according to researchers at the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania. The treatment specifically targets human papillomavirus (HPV), which is frequently associated with HNSCCa, to trigger the immune response. Researchers will present the results of their pilot study during the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting in Chicago (Abstract #6073).

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The American Society of Clinical Oncology has named University of Pennsylvania cancer and HIV gene therapy pioneer Carl June, MD, as the 2017 winner of the David A. Karnofsky Memorial Award. The honor goes to an oncologist who has made outstanding contributions to cancer research, diagnosis, and treatment. In addition to receiving the award, June will give the Karnofsky Lecture on Saturday, June 3, during the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual meeting in Chicago.