Faculty in the News


Nov 23

Autoimmune disease

Autoimmune disease

A research team led by Michael Mitchell of the School of Engineering and Applied Science has developed a lipid nanoparticle platform to deliver Foxp3 mRNA to T cells for applications in autoimmunity. “Broadly, this platform can be used to engineer adoptive cell therapies for specific autoimmune diseases and can potentially be used to create therapeutic avenues for allergies, organ transplantation, and beyond,” Mitchell says.

Read More


Sept 2023

Penn Opens New Multi-Disciplinary Research Labs in One uCity Square

Penn Opens New Multi-Disciplinary Research Labs in One uCity Square

Drew Weissman, MD, PhD, the Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research in Infectious Diseases, Harvey Friedman, MD, a professor of Infectious Diseases, and Vladimir Muzykantov, MD, PhD, Founders Professor in Nanoparticle Research, are among a group of prominent Penn scientists moving to new lab space in the 13-story One uCity Square building in West Philadelphia. The move consolidates research on messenger RNA, nanoparticles, and other cutting-edge biomedical technology.

Philadelphia Inquirer

When Is the Best Time to Get Your Flu, COVID-19 and RSV Shots?

When Is the Best Time to Get Your Flu, COVID-19 and RSV Shots?

Fall brings more than a chill in the air and changing leaves: it also ushers in respiratory virus season. E. John Wherry, PhD, chair of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics, shared insights into timing vaccines to stay protected, such as for the flu. For example, if you get sick with the flu before you’ve been vaccinated, you should still get the vaccine about a month later, because the flu vaccine typically protects against four types or strains of influenza.

Wall Street Journal

Updated COVID-19 Vaccine Rolling Out to Pharmacies Nationwide

Updated COVID-19 Vaccine Rolling Out to Pharmacies Nationwide

The updated COVID-19 vaccine, approved recently by the FDA, debuted this week. E. John Wherry, PhD, chair of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics, spoke about the vaccine and noted that those receiving the new booster should expect “at least some coverage of a lot of the variants that may arise over the next four to six months.”

6ABC


July 2023

No, COVID Vaccines Don’t Contain Nanotechnology That Can Be Programmed via 5G Wireless Networks 

No, COVID Vaccines Don’t Contain Nanotechnology That Can Be Programmed via 5G Wireless Networks 

E. John Wherry, PhD, chair of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics, helps to disprove a rumor that COVID-19 vaccines can be controlled wirelessly via “lipid nanoparticles” in the vaccine, including ones with a “cationic,” or positive, charge. “These charges are very simple, completely normal, chemistry,” Wherry said. "Nothing at all nefarious about this.”

Associated Press


May 2023

CRISPR Delivery Method Offers Gentler Approach to Editing T Cells

CRISPR Delivery Method Offers Gentler Approach to Editing T Cells

Research findings published in Nature Biotechnology outlined the development of a new gene editing technique which could help produce cell-based therapies. Senior author E. John Wherry, PhD, chair of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics, discussed the results. “The biggest advantage is that we can edit really fragile cells. We get super-high viability and really efficient editing in cells that would otherwise die when you try to edit them.”

Genome Web • Penn Medicine News Release


April 2023

Using Virus’ Lock-Pick Skills for Good

Using Virus’ Lock-Pick Skills for Good

By borrowing protein fragments that viruses use to get into the body’s cells, scientists may be able to boost the efficiency and effectiveness of gene-editing techniques, with an eye toward super-charging cell therapies for cancer and other conditions. The team of researchers co-led by E. John Wherry, PhD, the Richard and Barbara Schiffrin President’s Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Systems Pharmacology & Translational Therapeutics, believe that this “theft” from bad-actor viruses could also speed up the creation of better lab models for scientific study.

Read More

Researchers Identify Resistance Mechanism in Prostate Cancer

Researchers Identify Resistance Mechanism in Prostate Cancer

A particularly tough form of prostate cancer reboots tumor growth after treatment with the help of a testosterone-synthesizing enzyme called AKR1C3, according to a Penn Medicine research team including Andrea Detlefsen, a predoctoral fellow, and Trevor Penning, PhD, the Thelma Brown and Henry Charles Molinoff Professor of Pharmacology. This discovery opens up a potential new target for future treatments to pierce particularly resistant prostate cancers’ defense mechanisms.

Read More


Feb 2023

The Case of the Incredibly Long-Lived Mouse Cells

The Case of the Incredibly Long-Lived Mouse Cells

Scientists kept rodents’ immune T cells active four times longer than mice can live — which has huge implications for cancer, vaccination, and aging research. “It’s probably one of the most extraordinary papers in immunology that I’ve seen, easily in the past decade,” said E. John Wherry, PhD, chair of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics, who was not involved in the study. “It tells us that immunity can be incredibly durable, if we understand how to generate it properly.”

Read More


Jan 2023

Five things to know about this year’s ‘tripledemic’

Five things to know about this year’s ‘tripledemic’

Flu season came early this year, RSV reared its ugly head, and now there’s a new SARS-CoV-2 variant circulating. Immunologist E. John Wherry and influenza expert Scott Hensley of the Perelman School of Medicine spoke with Penn Today about what this confluence means for our immune systems, vaccinations, and viral competition.

Read More

What Is COVID Actually Doing to Our Immune Systems?

What Is COVID Actually Doing to Our Immune Systems?

A new idea about how COVID-19 can affect immunity has emerged: that even mild infections routinely cause consequential damage to our bodies’ defenses. However, robust longitudinal data starting prior to the pandemic would show “whether we’ve seen large-scale changes in immune fitness,” said E. John Wherry, PhD, chair of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics, and we just don’t have it. In its absence, “the evidence of a long-term impact on the immune system in fully recovered COVID-19 patients, whether mild or severe, is really pretty thin.”

Read More

The race to supercharge cancer-fighting T cells

The race to supercharge cancer-fighting T cells

Advances in genome editing through processes such as CRISPR, and the ability to rewire cells through synthetic biology, have led to increasingly elaborate approaches for modifying and supercharging T cells for therapy. Avery Posey, PhD, an assistant professor of Pharmacology, and Carl June, MD, the Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy, explain how new techniques are providing tools to counter some of the limitations of current CAR T cell therapies.

Read More