Lea Ann Matura, associate professor in Penn Nursing’s biobehavioral health sciences, is one of eight winners of Bayer’s inaugural Pulmonary Hypertension Accelerated Bayer (PHAB) Awards. Dr. Matura will study alternative treatments, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Bright Light Therapy, to improve symptoms of PAH, including insomnia, fatigue and physical activity levels.

The PHAB Awards is a new US-based research grant program created to support clinical research in pulmonary hypertension (PH), with a focus on pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH). The recipients will receive a combined total of $1 million in grants over a two-year period, making the PHAB Awards one of the largest industry-funded grant programs focused on PAH and CTEPH in the United States. The award-winning research aims to fill gaps in knowledge about the treatment and management of PH, translate the use of existing therapies for new patient populations and predict surgical risk benefit.