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• Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, Penn’s historic mRNA vaccine research team, win 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine Monday, October 2, 2023

  The University of Pennsylvania messenger RNA pioneers whose years of scientific partnership unlocked an understanding of how to modify mRNA to make it an effective therapeutic—enabling a platform used to rapidly develop lifesaving vaccines amid the global COVID-19 pandemic—have been named winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. They become the 28th and 29th Nobel laureates affiliated with Penn, and join nine previous Nobel laureates with ties to the University of Pennsylvania who have won the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

  Nearly three years after the rollout of mRNA vaccines across the world, Katalin Karikó, an adjunct professor of neurosurgery in Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, and Drew Weissman, the Roberts Family Professor of Vaccine Research in the Perelman School of Medicine, are recipients of the prize announced this morning by the Nobel Assembly in Solna, Sweden. 

• Penn Medicine Awarded $9.7 Million from The Warren Alpert Foundation for Genetic Counselor Continuing Education Efforts Wednesday, January 4, 2023

  PHILADELPHIA— Penn Medicine has received a $9.7 million grant from The Warren Alpert Foundation (WAF) that will fund continuing education efforts for genetic counselors, to ensure opportunities for continued training that will keep them on the leading edge of their profession interpreting genomic data and explaining its implications to patients. This grant will position genetic counselors to advance research to address the many critical questions in the implementation of genomic information into clinical practice.

• Penn Medicine Awarded $9.5 Million Grant from the Warren Alpert Foundation to Increase Diversity in Genetic Counseling Programs Wednesday, November 3, 2021

  The Warren Alpert Foundation funding becomes the most significant award to support genetic counseling education nationwide

  PHILADELPHIA —  Penn Medicine has been awarded a $9.5 million grant from the Warren Alpert Foundation to continue its efforts to increase diversity in genetic counseling, a field that, despite impressive leaps forward in genetic knowledge, lacks a diverse workforce. The Alliance to Increase Diversity in Genetic Counseling grant will support 40 underrepresented students in five genetic counseling programs in the Northeastern U.S. over five years to expand all dimensions of diversity.  PI Kathleen Valverde, PhD, LCGC, the Director of the Master of Science in Genetic Counseling Program at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, will lead this effort, joined by a consortium of participating Genetic Counseling master’s programs from Boston University, Rutgers University, Sarah Lawrence College, and the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Ten students will be selected yearly, two from each program, to receive full tuition support and a cost of living stipend.  Click here for more information on the Alliance to Increase Diversity Scholarships at the University of Pennsylvania.