Congratulations to Susan W. Volk, VMD, PhD, DACVS, who has been named the Corinne R. and Henry Bower Professor of Surgery.
Dr. Volk is an international thought leader, speaker, and inventor. Her current research funding includes two NIH grants (RO1) as PI, along with other private foundation awards. Her body of research focuses on mechanisms by which the extracellular matrix regulates key processes in the wound healing-fibrosis-cancer triad. Dr. Volk’s awards include the Penn Center for Innovation’s 2019 Emerging Inventor of the Year and the Wound Healing Foundation’s 2021 Translational Regenerative Science Award. She is a member of the Editorial Board of Wound Repair and Regeneration and an elected member of the Board of Directors for both the Wound Healing Society and the North American Veterinary Regenerative Medicine Association. Recently elected vice president of the Wound Healing Society, Volk will assume the Society’s presidency in 2025.
Dr. Volk, who is a board-certified Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons, earned her veterinary (VMD) and doctoral degrees (PhD) from the University of Pennsylvania, through the University’s Veterinary Medical Scientist Training Program. She joined Penn Vet’s faculty in 2007 as assistant professor of Small Animal Surgery. She was appointed associate professor of Small Animal Surgery in 2018, and appointed professor of Small Animal Surgery this year.
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.
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Jennifer Punt, VMD, PhD, was named a Distinguished Fellow of the American Association of Immunologists (AAI) on April 4, 2023. This program annually recognizes members for distinguished careers, outstanding scientific contributions, and their service to AAI and the immunology community. It honors active, long-term members (25 or more years) who have demonstrated one or more of the following: excellence in research accomplishment in the field of immunology; exceptional leadership to the immunology community in academia, foundations, nonprofits, industry, or government at a national or international level; notable distinction as an educator.
Gustavo D. Aguirre, VMD, PhD, is one of four faculty from the University of Pennsylvania who have been named recipients of the Helen Keller Prize for Vision Research by the Helen Keller Foundation, in partnership with BrightFocus Foundation, for their contributions to vision science.
According to the award's mission statement, the prize is in keeping with "Helen's lifelong quest to 'hasten the day when there shall be no preventable blindness.'" The Prize is given for "research excellence as demonstrated by a number of significant research contributions to vision science during the course of a career or for a single research contribution of exceptional importance to vision science."
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Drs. Nicola Mason and Antonia Rotolo Receive 2023 Sebastian Strong Discovery Science Award
Nicola Mason, BVetMed, PhD, and Antonia Rotolo, MD, PhD, are recipients of the 2023 Sebastian Strong Discovery Science Award. This award provides $500,000 to support their work to advance allogeneic, chimeric antigen receptor iNKT cells for the treatment of veterinary and pediatric patients with osteosarcoma.
Dr. Andrew Modzelewski Receives Two Highly Competitive Awards
Andrew Modezelewski, PhD, has received two prestigious and highly competitive awards. He has been named a Searle Scholar and also secured a Beckman Young Investigator Award. The Searle Scholars Program supports high risk, high reward research across a broad range of scientific disciplines. Each scholar receives an award of $300,000 in flexible funding to support his, her, or their work over the next three years. The Beckman Young Investigator Program (BYI) Program provides research support to the most promising young faculty members in the early stages of their academic careers in the chemical and life sciences, particularly to foster the invention of methods, instruments, and materials that will open new avenues of research in science.
Dr. Kotaro Sasaki Receives Endocrine Society’s 2023 Early Investigator Award
Kotaro Sasaki, MD, PhD, is one of five recipients to receive a 2023 Early Investigator Award from the Endocrine Society. These awards provide monetary support to assist in the development of early career investigators and recognition of their accomplishments in areas of general endocrinology.
Dr. Gary Althouse Named Outstanding Academic of the Year
Gary Althouse, DVM, PhD, is the 2023 recipient of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians’ Outstanding Swine Academic of the Year award. The award was presented during the association’s 54th Annual meeting in Aurora, Colorado.
Dr. Igor Brodsky Receives 2023 Nusbaum Student Mentoring Award
Igor Brodsky, PhD, is the recipient of the 2023 Michael P. Nusbaum Graduate Student Mentoring Award, which is conferred by Biomedical Graduate Studies (BGS) at Penn. Mentors who receive this award embody the skills, experience, and wisdom essential to success in science; they serve as models for how one conducts his or her life in balance with a demanding career; and in acknowledgement that certain faculty play pivotal roles in guiding students in reaching their scholarly potential.
Dr. Brodsky was praised by his mentees and colleagues for his personalized mentorship that is supportive and encouraging while providing a balance between intellectual freedom and guidance. Dr. Brodsky’s dedication to mentoring students and guiding them in reaching their scholarly potential perpetuate the mentoring values of Dr. Nusbaum within BGS.
Dr. Nicola Mason Delivers Congressional Briefing to Raise Awareness of Translational Research
Nicola Mason, BVetMed, PhD, was invited by FASEB-AAVMC to deliver a congressional briefing on April 19, 2023, to both the House and the Senate, to raise awareness about the value of companion animal research in advancing biomedical and veterinary research. Dr. Mason used this opportunity to represent the veterinary profession and champion the translational research that is performed at Penn and beyond, to advance human and veterinary health.
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Dr. Daniel Beiting Hosts Inaugural GEMINI Educational Series
The GEMINI series—organized jointly by Penn Vet’s Institute for Infectious and Zoonotic Diseases (IIZD) and Penn Medicine’s Institute for Immunology and Immune Health (I3H) group—is a series of one-day, hands-on, workshops geared toward teaching software and tools for advanced data analysis in GEnomics, MIcrobiology, aNd Immunology. Three GEMINI workshops were held this Spring. One focused on using the R programming language and the ggplot2 software for creating publication-quality graphics. A second taught attendees how to connect analytic code to Adobe Illustrator to allow automated updating of complex, multi-panel figures for publication. A third workshop was hosted jointly with the Division of Clinical Diagnostics at CHOP and covered the UCSC Genome Browser.
The GEMINI Series was founded and is co-organized by Penn Vet’s Daniel Beiting, PhD, and PSOM’s Allie Greenplate, PhD, and is supported by Immune Health, the Institute for Immunology, and the IIZD.
ULAR Team Places Third in the 2023 50K Schuylkill River Relay
On April 22, 2023, the six-woman relay team of faculty and residents from ULAR (Team Name:
Unforgettable
Ladies
Actively
Running) was awarded third place for their finishing time in the 2023 50K Schuylkill River Relay that started near Phoenixville and went to Conshohocken and back again. The ULAR team wore animal-print socks to represent Penn Vet and all received a trophy (shown in the photo) for their impressive efforts. (L to R: Drs. Claire Hankenson, Blythe Philips, Natalie Fogarty (ULAR resident ’23), Kristin Gardiner, Lisa Hagan (ULAR resident ’23), and Matilda David (ULAR resident ’22)).