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Five Grants from Kaufman Foundation for Cutting-Edge Research
University of Pennsylvania researchers will receive five of the ten grants being awarded this year by the Charles E. Kaufman Foundation, part of the Pittsburgh Foundation, which supports cutting-edge scientific research in chemistry, biology and physics at institutions across Pennsylvania.
Hailing from Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences, School of Engineering & Applied Science and Perelman School of Medicine, the researchers won awards in two categories. New Investigator Research grants entail $150,000 for two years, while New Initiative Research grants are $300,000 for two years.
Awardees in the New Investigator category include:
Maya Capelson, an assistant professor in the department of cell and developmental biology, for research on “The Nuclear pore as a novel scaffold for spatial genome organization.” Dr. Capelson and her colleagues will investigate the basic mechanisms of how the genome is organized by nuclear scaffolds, such as nuclear pores, and how this organization contributes to turning genes on and off.
Matthew Good, also an assistant professor in the department of cell and developmental biology, for research on “Building synthetic cell-like compartments to investigate the impacts of cell size and shape on intracellular function.” The Good Lab will study the role cell size plays in specifying biological function. Researchers there will develop a synthetic cell system to uncover how cellular dimensions regulate intracellular assembly and gene expression in both healthy and diseased cells.
Amish Patel, assistant professor in the department of chemical and biomolecular engineering, for research on “Uncovering the molecular basis for ice recognition by thermal hysteresis proteins.” Fish, insects and other organisms survive in frigid polar environments with the help of specialized proteins that keep their cells from freezing. These proteins bind to nascent ice crystals and prevent them from growing, but how these proteins are able to distinguish between liquid and solid water remains an open question. Dr. Patel’s group will address this using specialized molecular simulations, with implications ranging from increasing the freeze tolerance of crop plants to the preservation of transplant organs and frozen foods.
Awardees in the New Initiative Research category include:
Justin Khoury, associate professor, and Tom Lubensky, the Christopher H. Brown Distinguished Professor of Physics, both in the department of physics and astronomy, for research on “New approach to dark matter.” Dr. Khoury and Dr. Lubensky will develop a novel cosmological framework in which dark matter is a superfluid. If this framework is correct, the sound waves associated with the superfluid would affect the orbital motion of stars and gas in galaxies, thereby explaining a number of observational puzzles that have emerged in recent years.
Andrea Liu, the Hepburn Professor of Physics; Benjamin Prosser, assistant professor in medicine’s department of physiology and Dennis Discher, the Robert D. Bent Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, for research on “Mechanical signaling in early hearts: theory and experiment.” The research team will test their theoretical idea that in the embryonic heart, cells use mechanical, not electrical, signals to coordinate their contraction in order to pump blood. One prediction is that the embryonic heart starts beating once the tissue, which stiffens as it matures, becomes just stiff enough to support mechanical signaling. Dr. Liu and Dr. Discher are examining similar stiffening mechanisms and their impact on cancer development in the new NIH-supported Physical Sciences Oncology Center at Penn.
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Peter Adamson: National Cancer Advisory Board
Peter C. Adamson, a pediatric oncologist and leading scientist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and a professor of pediatrics and pharmacology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has been appointed by President Obama to the National Cancer Advisory Board (NCAB). Dr. Adamson is the only pediatric oncologist to currently serve on the NCAB, and will work to ensure that the voices of the pediatric cancer community are heard by decision makers in the federal government.
In this role, Dr. Adamson will advise the US Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the President on a wide range of issues relating to the national cancer program, including NCI operations. Notably, the NCAB and the President’s Cancer Panel are the only advisory bodies at either the National Institutes of Health or the Department of Health and Human Services whose members are appointed by the President.
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ASGE Crystal Awards
Two physicians in the division of gastroenterology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania received Crystal Awards from the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) in May.
David Jaffe, a professor of clinical medicine, director of gastroenterology and medical director of endoscopy at Penn Medicine Radnor, received the ASGE’s Distinguished Educator Award for excellence in teaching students, trainees and practicing physicians. Dr. Jaffe has given lengthy service to the ASGE’s educational mission, planning courses and clinical symposia and most recently serving as chair of the society’s continuing medical education (CME) committee. At the Perelman School of Medicine, he has been recognized by medical students and fellows for his outstanding teaching in gastroenterology.
Michael Kochman, the Wilmott Family Professor of Medicine and vice chair of clinical affairs in the department of medicine, received the Master Endoscopist Award, given annually to a clinician who has spent most of his or her time in patient care and who has made significant contributions to the field of gastrointestinal endoscopy. Dr. Kochman previously received the Mastrioanni Clinical Innovator Award from Penn in recognition of his contributions to clinical medicine. He developed the Wilmott Center for Endoscopic Innovation, Research and Training at Penn and is serving as its inaugural director. The facility enables doctors to develop new endoscopic techniques and practice them in a laboratory setting before applying them to patients.
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Benjamin Garcia: Ken Standing Award
Benjamin Garcia, the Presidential Professor and director of quantitative proteomics in the epigenetics program, department of biochemistry and biophysics, Smilow Center for Translational Research at the Perelman School of Medicine, is the recipient of the 2015 Ken Standing Award. The award will be presented in December at the 8th International Symposium on Enabling Technologies (ETP) in Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada.
This award is presented by the sponsors of the ETP Symposium biennially to honor a scientist who has made a significant contribution to technology development in support of research in the life sciences, and who is 45 years or younger at the time of the nomination. Dr. Garcia will receive a $5000 cash prize and a commemorative sculpture and will be a featured speaker at the symposium.
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Afaf I. Meleis: Three Honors
Afaf I. Meleis, professor of nursing and sociology and former dean of Penn’s School of Nursing, is the recipient of three prestigious honors. In July, she was inducted as an Honorary Fellow in the National League for Nursing’s (NLN) 2015 Academy of Nursing Education for her significant contributions to nursing education.
She will receive the American Academy of Nursing’s Living Legend award on October 15 at the Academy’s annual conference in Washington, DC. Recipients of this award are recognized for their influential and lasting impact on nursing, health and health care over the course of their careers. Dr. Meleis was selected for her scholarly contributions and mentorship that has informed nurses around the world.
She will also receive the Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI) 2015 Nell J. Watts Lifetime Achievement in Nursing Award on November 9 at STTI’s 43rd Biennial Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. She will be honored for her contributions to nursing over the course of more than five decades, during which time she pushed the boundaries of nursing science, fostered the next generation of healthcare leaders, worked to improve the lives of women around the globe and demonstrated her leadership through her role as a dean and in many other roles throughout her career.
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Mary Naylor: Doris Schwartz Award
Mary Naylor, the Marian S. Ware Professor in Gerontology, has been named the Gerontological Society of America’s (GSA) 2015 Doris Schwartz Gerontological Nursing Research Award recipient. The distinguished honor, presented by GSA’s Health Sciences Section and sponsored with the Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing, recognizes Dr. Naylor’s outstanding and sustained contribution to geriatric nursing research. She will receive the award at the GSA’s Annual Scientific Meeting in November, at which time she will present a special lecture on gerontological nursing research.
Dr. Naylor, along with a multidisciplinary team of Penn colleagues, developed the Transitional Care Model as a solution to make the federal health insurance program for the elderly and disabled more efficient and cost effective. The model assigns an advanced practice nurse to support patients and their families through critical transitions, such as hospital-to-home. An individual nurse can manage as many as 20 patients at a time over a 60-day period. The model has been proven in multiple NIH-funded randomized clinical trials to significantly improve patients’ experience with care and health, while reducing avoidable re-hospitalizations.
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Alan Ruby: Order of Australia
Alan Ruby, senior fellow at Penn’s Graduate School of Education (GSE), was invested in the Order of Australia, that country’s award for achievement and merit in service to country and humanity, earlier this summer. Mr. Ruby recently worked with Kim Beazley, Australia’s minister of employment, education, training and youth affairs, to lead the country’s first significant steps towards a national curriculum framework, expanding the scope of Australia’s system of vocational and higher education, prioritizing the teaching of east-Asian languages and opening universities and colleges to more foreign students.
At Penn GSE, Mr. Ruby works to improve higher education programs around the world. He was instrumental in establishing a relationship with education leaders in Kazakhstan, where he and his colleagues have consulted with the government in trying to modernize its university system. He advised on founding Nazarbayev University, an English-language university with a goal of preparing graduates for master’s and PhD programs at world-class institutions around the world. He is now looking at what the makers of massive open online courses can learn from social media about building and retaining users and continues teaching about the many ways education can give all young people more choices in life.
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Eric Schelter: Harry Gray Award
Eric Schelter, associate professor of chemistry at Penn, is the recipient of the 2016 Harry Gray Award for Creative Work in Inorganic Chemistry by a Young Investigator by the American Chemical Society (ACS). The award was created to recognize creative and impactful work by a young investigator in a forefront area of inorganic chemistry, broadly defined. Dr. Schelter will be honored at the ACS National Meeting in San Diego in March of 2016.
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Larry Silver: Phi Beta Kappa Scholar
Larry Silver, the Farquhar Professor of Art History at Penn, has been named a 2015 Phi Beta Kappa Scholar. As part of the award, he will visit eight campuses during the academic year, presenting public lectures and visiting classes.
Dr. Silver will visit McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland; the University of Maine in Orono, Maine; Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado; Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin; the University of Illinois at Urbana—Champaign; Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; and Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa. His lectures will include “India Ink: Europe’s Earliest Views of the Subcontinent;” “Dutch Global Horizons;” “New Jerusalem: Rembrandt, Amsterdam and Religion;” “Marked and Modern: 20th-Century Jewish Artists” and “Formation of the Habsburg Empire.”
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Nancy Speck: Henry M. Stratton Medal
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) awarded Nancy Speck, professor of cell and developmental biology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, the 2015 Henry M. Stratton Medal for Basic Science for her “seminal contributions in the area of hematology research.” Dr. Speck is associate director of Penn’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine, co-leads the hematologic malignancies program at Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center and is an investigator at the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute. She will accept her award on December 8 during the ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition in Orlando, Florida.
Dr. Speck is recognized for her key contributions to the understanding of developmental hematopoiesis (the production of blood cells) as well as the translation of these findings into leukemogenesis (the development of leukemia).
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