Penn Medicine News Blog

This week, when Oscar-winning actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie revealed that she underwent surgery to remove her breasts after learning that she carries one of the BRCA gene mutations that put her at high risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer, the news hit home here at the University of Pennsylvania. Just a year ago, Penn announced the creation of the Basser Research Center for BRCA, which was made possible by a $25 million gift from Penn alums Mindy and Jon Gray, in honor of Mindy Gray’s sister, Faith Basser, who died of ovarian cancer at age 44. As the only center in the United States devoted solely to research on prevention and treatment for cancers related to BRCA mutations, Jolie’s story turned a spotlight on the important work in progress there, and the experiences of the many other families with similar cancer risks.

This week, Susan Domchek, MD, executive director of the Basser Center in Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center, spoke with numerous national and Philadelphia-area media outlets, including the New York Times and Bloomberg News, all of whom were grappling with the larger questions prompted by Jolie’s disclosure. How many other women also face these same risks? Who should undergo genetic testing? Is having a mastectomy the only choice to cut risk?

These are issues that Domchek’s team in the Basser Center – which includes genetic counselors specifically trained to help people understand their genetic risks and create a personalized risk-reduction plan – confront every day, especially as the pace of genetic testing races forward and patients find themselves with more information about their potential risk than ever before.

Now that the school year and the focus on formal science education is slowing down, these images of Penn Medicine faculty, staff, and students sharing their love and knowledge of biomedical science with members of the public from infants to senior citizens during the 2013 Philadephia Science Festival may spark inspiration to last all year. Penn Med took part in a dozen activities all over the city, from a Carnival on the Ben Franklin Parkway that reached over 25,000 people to a TED-talk style panel discussion on innovation and funding at the historic Iron Gate Theatre. See ya' in 2014! 

Yesterday was the Perelman School of Medicine’s graduation at the Kimmel Center for Performing Arts, and for most of the students that means goodbye medical school and hello residency. So where will the 84 men and 76 women be heading as they embark on the next phase of their lives?

This year, an impressive 39 percent will take on primary care residencies around the country, no doubt helping to fill a critical void the U.S. has suffered in this area.

Internal medicine and pediatrics are popular disciplines again this year. And 26 percent of the graduating class is staying here at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for their residencies. 

“I want to put trauma doctors out of business.”

Rhonda Holmstrom, Trauma Outpatient & Injury Prevention Coordinator, says this with a smile, knowing it’s not a realistic goal, but she –- and other members of the trauma team at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania -– are reaching out to the community to help prevent many types of traumatic injury and are hopeful they can at least keep the need for trauma doctors to a minimum.

As a city hospital, HUP has a very busy emergency room.  Indeed, last year alone, the ER treated more than 2,500 trauma patients. Most, though, were not victims of car accidents, or even violence like gunshot wounds or stabbings. Instead, many injuries came from falls, most often among patients 65 or older.

According to the Centers for Disease Control website, falls are the leading cause of injury death among  adults in this age group.  Falls are also the most common cause of nonfatal injuries and hospital admissions for trauma, leading to brain injuries, spinal cord injuries and bone fractures.

The result, Holmstrom notes, is life-changing:  “These previously independent people now have an increased morbidity and mortality.  Most will not return to their homes.”

Most Penn Medicine CAREs grants expand existing programs or start new ones that support community health. In the case of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) Violence Intervention Program, a CAREs grant extends a program already making a difference that may not have received enough funding otherwise.

Two years ago, Penn neurodegenerative researchers determined that a well-known chemical process called acetylation has a previously unrecognized association with one of the biological processes associated with Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. The findings were published in Nature Communications by first author postdoctoral fellow Todd Cohen, PhD, and senior author Virginia M.-Y. Lee, PhD, director of Penn’s Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research.

Tau is one of the primary disease proteins associated with neurodegenerative diseases. Tau proteins are expressed primarily in the central nervous system where they help with the assembly and stability of microtubules, protein structures that are the backbone of nerve-cell axons.  

It's Monday afternoon after another warm, sunny weekend here in Philadelphia, and that familiar reddish tint of sunburn is on faces all around me. As we emerge from a particularly gloomy and cold winter,  people have been embracing every opportunity to spend time outside, but we're apparently out of practice when it comes to remembering to apply sunscreen.

Spring is the perfect time to replenish your sunscreen supply, and take a few minutes to get your skin checked. If you notice any suspicious spots, or haven't had a full-body skin screening in a year or two, now is the time.

Just in time for the summer, Penn Dermatology and the Abramson Cancer Center's annual and free skin cancer screening will be held on May 18. If you haven't signed up already, or know someone who may need to get their skin cancer checked, call 215-662-2737 to schedule an appointment, as space is limited. A large team Penn dermatologists will be screening 300 patients in 4 hours; it only takes a pro about 7 minutes to assess your skin.

As policymakers, patients and healthcare clinicians begin to find their way through the maze of changes outlined and endorsed under the Affordable Care Act, some providers are calling for further restructuring to address what they call missed opportunities in the legislation. While the guidelines aim to improve the quality of care delivered to patients and simultaneously reduce cost growth, it seems to the focus is largely on patients with certain illnesses, such as heart disease. Though the benefit to those patients is no small feat, health care reform directed at the large and costly cancer patient population is being overlooked according to a new commentary published this week by JAMA Internal Medicine and authored by faculty at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Science comes to life in countless ways -- in hundreds of booths on the Ben Franklin Parkway and dozens of cafes during the Philadelphia Science Festival, in children's books like the "Magic Schoolbus" series, but sometimes it's the simplest tools that provoke an aha moment.  

In an online video series, Florie Charles, a doctoral student at the University of California at San Francisco, and founder of Youreka Science, simply uses a white board and colored markers (and occasionally a small cut out mouse -- animal, not computer peripheral) to explain findings from recent papers in an accessible, fresh, and engaging way. One of her newest videos happens to feature a recent publication from the lab of Garret FitzGerald, MD, FRS, director of Penn Medicine's Institute of Translational Medicine and Therapeutics.

More than 10 billion lab tests are performed every year by more than 300,000 medical laboratory professionals across the United States. At Penn Medicine, close to 1,200 faculty and staff in the department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine work around the clock to perform critical patient care functions such as running blood banks and conducting tests that provide essential data to make diagnoses of all kinds and keep patients safe throughout their hospital stays.

Laboratory professionals are among the unsung heroes of patient care as the team behind the scenes who "get results" or prepare lifesaving therapeutic products, ranging from donated immune cells for infusing into cancer patients undergoing bone marrow transplants to blood for resuscitating patients who've had traumatic accidents.

Increasingly, technology allows patients a glimpse of this important work, by delivering real-time results that help physicians select and manage therapies. But much of this work still remains out of sight from hospital wards and outpatient clinics. Most patients and caregivers will never meet these lab professionals in person, although many decisions for primary and specialized care depend on the expertise and advice from clinical labs in some way.