Penn Medicine News Blog Archive: Personalized Medicine

In a new Perspective piece published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, Jason Karlawish, MD, professor of Medicine, Medical Ethics and Health Policy in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and co-author Aaron S. Kesselheim, MD, JD, MPH, from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, delve into a series of high profile court cases testing the limits of patent protection.

The Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (PLM) is celebrating National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week April 22 to 28. Medical laboratory professionals are among the unsung heroes of patient care - the team behind the scenes who are “doing the best with every test.”

For diseases historically considered in the domain of distinct neurological sub-specialties - movement disorders, neuromuscular conditions, and dementia - the steady increase in our understanding of their overlapping causes and symptoms, as well as their co-existence in the same individual, has led to a shift in how care is delivered. Physicians, nurse practitioners, therapists, and other care-team members are cross-training and collaborating more than ever.

To celebrate February as American Heart Month, the News Blog is highlighting some of the latest heart-centric news and stories from all parts of Penn Medicine. Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the number one birth defect in the U.S., affecting one out of 120 babies. This group of conditions consists...

Research from the Department of Psychiatry could have ended up as four or five different interesting papers with moderate impact in the field. Instead, we were able to tell a complete story by linking potential genetic risk factors of schizophrenia to a functional disruption in how the brain responds to sound. We then linked those processes together by identifying reduced activity in special nerve cells that are designed to make other cells in the brain work together at a very fast pace.

If you wind up going to the hospital to get a tattoo, you're not the only person to be surprised by the intersection of art and medicine. We're very fortunate at Penn to have a skilled tattoo artist who specializes in 3D nipple tattoos along with tattoos for scar camouflage or cosmetic purposes - Mandy Sauler, a micropigmentation specialist in Penn's Plastic Surgery Division.

For years, breast reconstruction options have been limited for women depending on their size. Now, thanks to research from the team of breast surgeons and plastic surgery breast reconstruction experts at Penn, there are options for women of all sizes.

How the rare informs the common is becoming a – well – more common theme in biomedical research. Working with people who have rare genetic conditions provides researchers with a unique window into learning the role specific genes play in more common diseases.

Platelet-rich plasma therapy (PRPT) has received a lot of attention as a popular treatment for celebrity athletes, but its value in treating the injuries in many of the most famous cases is unproven. Samir Mehta, MD provides insight into the types of cases where PRPT is approved and demonstrated effective.

A genetic mistake that arose thousands of years ago spares rare HIV-infected individuals the ravages of AIDS. Researchers at Penn’s School of Medicine are in the midst of translating the language of ancient genetic mistakes into today’s cures.