News

New research seeks an mRNA therapy for heavy menstrual bleeding

Every minute in the U.S., a woman requires a blood transfusion because of her period. “Heavy menstrual bleeding affects one in three women, but our resources for treating it are incredibly limited,” said Kathleen O’Neill, MD, an assistant professor...

Penn Medicine Opens $376M Immunology Center Boosting Research in Philadelphia

Antibody Drug Triggers Tumor Disappearance in Early Trial

In a small study, two patients with metastatic cancer who received an engineered antibody that targets CD40, a protein that plays an important role in the immune system, experienced complete remission. It’s an “encouraging moment,” according to Gregory Beatty, MD,...

Worries that ‘Many Will Suffer’ from mRNA Vaccine Research Cuts

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced on Tuesday that it will cancel $500 million worth of projects dedicated to designing messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines for pandemic preparedness. “We are working on about 30 different mRNA vaccines, including...

Could Cancer Vaccines Get Held Up by HHS’s Stance on mRNA?

One of the most promising avenues toward new cancer treatments are vaccines, therapies designed to prompt an immune response against a patient’s tumors. Oncologists worry that cancer vaccine research will hit federal resistance, given the Health and Human Services Department’s...

Plant medicine

Henry Daniell of the School of Dental Medicine researches biopharmaceuticals and focuses on how plant-based therapeutics can address global health and environmental challenges. In a Q&A with the Environmental Innovations Initiative, where he is a fellow, Daniell talks about his...

Kennedy Cancels Nearly $500 Million in mRNA Vaccine Contracts

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has canceled nearly $500 million of grants and contracts for developing mRNA vaccines, the Department of Health and Human Services announced on Tuesday. The new cancellations dismayed scientists, many of whom regard mRNA shots...

Cytokine-Secreting CAR T-Cell Candidate Therapy Shows Preliminary Efficacy in Patients with Lymphoma

A next-generation CAR T cell therapy showed promising results in patients whose B-cell lymphomas continued to resist multiple rounds of other cancer treatments, including commercially available CAR T cell therapies. Jakub Svoboda, MD, an associate professor of Hematology-Oncology, Carl June,...

Managing Heart Disease Risk in Psoriatic Arthritis

Psoriatic arthritis (PsA), a systemic inflammatory condition, increases heart disease and stroke risk by promoting atherosclerosis and amplifying traditional risk factors like hypertension and diabetes. Joel Gelfand, MD, the James J. Leyden, M.D. Endowed Professor in Clinical Investigation and...

‘Switch’ Harnesses Macrophages for Good

Blocking production of a single protein can flip tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) from protecting tumors to attacking them. To unlock this switch, Jorge Henao-Mejia, MD, PhD, and Megan L. Clark, of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, conducted studies across multiple tumor...

AI May Help Make New Antibiotics from Spider and Snake Venoms

Using an artificial intelligence tool that predicts the antimicrobial capabilities of peptides, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania were able to screen over 40 million peptides from venom—known as venom-encrypted peptides (VEPs)—in just hours. The work, led by César de...

Boosting mRNA

By tweaking the structure of the lipid nanoparticles that deliver mRNA, Michael Mitchell of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and colleagues were able to reduce the inflammation and boost the effectiveness of mRNA vaccines that prevent or treat...

Dispatch Biotherapeutics Is a Biotech Start-up with Penn Medicine Roots

Research from a lab at Penn Medicine has led to a new startup, Dispatch Bio, with the ambitious goal of developing a universal treatment option for solid tumors, such as lung and colon cancer. CAR T cell therapy pioneer Carl...

Does Psoriasis Increase Your Cancer Risk?

While there is a correlation between increased cancer risk and the autoimmune disease psoriasis, the majority of cancer risks are low. However, experts are not sure how exactly the disease and cancer are linked. Joel Gelfand, MD, the James...

New Method of Immunotherapy Could Improve Treatment Efficacy

In newly published research, CAR T cell therapy pioneer Carl June, MD, the Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy, and a team from Penn spinout company Capstan Therapeutics, showed proof-of-concept for a strategy using mRNA injections to induce the...

The Future of mRNA Science in the United States

Politicization of scientific research, research funding, and vaccines could cause the United States to fall behind others if the federal government makes cuts to scientific research, especially mRNA research projects, Nobel Prize laureate Drew Weissman, MD, PhD, of Infectious...

Cutting-Edge Cancer Therapy Offers Hope Against Lupus

Lupus can be debilitating and sometimes deadly, but recent trials show CAR T cell therapy stopping it in its tracks. Carl June, MD, who pioneered the approach for cancer, told the New York Times that its potential for treating...

Engineered-in-Patient Approach Could Expand CAR T Treatment Reach

Limitations on CAR T cell therapies include their dependence on the costly engineering of patients’ T cells in the lab. Now, a team led by Carl June, MD, of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, has outlined a new method for...

A CAR T Therapy for KRAS-Driven Tumors

KRAS is a cell-growth gene that in mutant, fast-growth form drives some of the most intractable cancers. But a new type of CAR T cell immunotherapy developed by a group led by Daniel Powell Jr., PhD, of Pathology and...

Antiviral gum

In this Friday Issue of Penn Today, we invite you to return to a piece we ran in March to read about the innovative approach that Henry Daniell of the School of Dental Medicine takes to creating low-cost solutions to...