Congratulations to P. Jeremy Wang, MD, PhD, who has been named the Ralph L. Brinster President’s Distinguished Professor. The awarding of a named, endowed professorship is the highest honor bestowed upon a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania and reflects a commitment to scientific discovery, mentorship, and service.
Dr. Wang holds an extraordinary record of scholarly accomplishments. His research program focuses on the cellular, molecular, genetic and epigenetic controls of meiosis, the process of cell division that is unique to germline cells and influences genetic diversity. Wang seeks to understand the generation of gametes through in vitro meiosis that could remedy infertility in animals and humans; and identify abnormal meiosis that can result in spontaneous pregnancy loss or human congenital conditions. He has received NIH support totaling $16 million at Penn and is currently PI on two NIH grants. He has mentored more than 28 students and fellows from across the United States and the world.
Dipti Pitta, PhD has received a 2022 USDA IDEAS grant in the amount of $995,000 for her proposal, Increasing efficiency and reducing methane emissions of dairy herds by bridging the gap between animal and data science. Dr. Pitta’s proposal was one of only four funded by the Inter-Disciplinary Engagement in Animal Systems (IDEAS) program.
The IDEAS program addresses complex issues in animal agriculture and aquaculture. Projects funded integrate knowledge from diverse disciplines in novel ways and address the complexity of social, cultural, environmental, economic, and technologic challenges facing the food and agriculture system in the U.S. today.
Elizabeth M. Lennon, DVM, PhD and her team were recently awarded a NIH Council on One Health Alliance-Clinical and Translational Science Award (COHA-CTSA). These highly competitive awards provide residency-trained veterinarians a two-year intensive laboratory-based translational research fellowship.
This fall, Dr. Lennon’s team will welcome Dr. Hyun-tae Kim, DVM, MS, who recently completed a nutrition residency at Cornell University. Dr. Kim will be studying mechanisms of diet-induced immunomodulation in inflammatory intestinal diseases in dogs and humans.
The COHA review heavily weights the expertise and relationships within the mentoring group, and in this case, the group consisting of Dr. Lennon, Dr. Dan Beiting, Dr. De’Broski Herbert, and Dr. Nicole Maloney Belle (PSOM) was a major strength.
Left to right: Elizabeth M. Lennon, Stephen D. Cole, Thomas Schaer, Andrew E. Vaughan, Eman Anis, and Roderick "Erick" B. Gagne
Penn Vet's Institute for Infectious and Zoonotic Diseases (IIZD) announced pilot awards for five projects supporting research investigators to overcome challenges associated with zoonotic infectious diseases of wildlife, domestic animals, and humans.
The 2022 recipients and projects are:
Elizabeth M. Lennon, DVM, PhD, Pamela Cole Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, School of Veterinary Medicine, and Susan R. Weiss, PhD, Professor of Microbiology, Perelman School of Medicine
Study: Development of an organoid model system to study SARS-CoV-2 infection in white-tailed deer
Stephen D. Cole, VMD, Assistant Professor of Clinical Microbiology, School of Veterinary Medicine
Study: Evaluation of UV-C disinfection technology for veterinary settings
Christoph A. Thaiss, PhD and Norbert Pardi, PhD, both Assistant Professors of Microbiology from the Perelman School of Medicine, and Thomas Schaer, VMD, Director of the Institute for Medical Translation, School of Veterinary Medicine
Study: Metagenomic control of mRNA vaccine efficiency
Andrew E. Vaughan, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine
Study: Modeling COVID-19 comorbidities with novel humanized ACE2 mice
Eman Anis, DVM, MVSc, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pathobiology, and Roderick “Erick” B. Gagne, PhD, Assistant Professor of Wildlife Disease Ecology, both from the School of Veterinary Medicine, Brendan Kelly, MD, MS, Assistant Professor of Medicine (Division of Infectious Diseases) and Assistant Professor of Epidemiology from the Perelman School of Medicine, and Susan R. Weiss, PhD, and Frederic Bushman, PhD, both Professors of Microbiology from the Perelman School of Medicine
Study: Evaluation of free ranging deer as a reservoir for SARS-CoV-2
The awards are provided through IIZD, the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine’s Center for Research on Coronaviruses and Other Emerging Pathogens, and the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics’ Program in Comparative Animal Biology (ITMAT-PICAB).
Left to right: Candice P. Chu, Maureen A. Griffin, Anna M. Massie, and Raghavi Sudharsan
Congratulations are in order for four Penn Vet faculty members who secured 2022-2023 pilot awards from The Thomas B. McCabe and Jeannette E. Laws McCabe Fund. The winning faculty members and their projects are:
Candice P. Chu, DVM, PhD, DACVP: Comparison of sample volume and isolation methods for urinary extracellular vesicles derived microRNA for transcriptomic biomarker studies in cats with chronic kidney disease
Maureen A. Griffin, DVM: Sentinel lymph node mapping for canine apocrine gland anal sac adenocarcinoma
Anna M. Massie, DVM: Assessment of microdamage and peri-prosthetic healing related to zinc-coated implants in a rabbit femur model
Raghavi Sudharsan, PhD: Functional characterization of a novel prolactin isoform in inherited retinopathies using a knockdown approach
Brian Flesner, MSc, DVM, DACVIM has been appointed Chair of the Osteosarcoma Research Scientific Advisory Board for Morris Animal Foundation. Scientific Advisory Board Chairs are nominated by the Chief Scientific Officer at Morris Animal Foundation and approved by the Foundation’s Research Oversight Committee. As Chair, Dr. Flesner will become familiar with all reviewed proposals on the topic of novel curative osteosarcoma treatments for giant-breed dogs in North America and facilitate deliberations during the Scientific Advisory Board meeting.
Kamen Simeonov, MD, PhD, of the Lengner Laboratory, is the winner of a 2022 Saul Winegrad Award for Outstanding Dissertation. This award was established in 1995 to recognize a dissertation of outstanding quality which makes a significant contribution to biomedical science. Selections are made at the graduate group level. Dr. Simeonov’s dissertation was selected from among 16 outstanding nominees in the Cell and Molecular Biology Graduate Group.
Bethany Keen, PhD, of the Penn Vet
Equine Pharmacology Research Laboratory, has been awarded funding for her postdoctoral fellowship from the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium (RMTC). Her funded proposal entitled,
Detection of bisphosphonates using metabolomics, will be conducted under the supervision of
Mary A. Robinson, VMD, PhD, DACVCP.