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ITMAT in the News

• The Check-up, Mouse-Style 24 Aug 2009
  Circadian biologist John Hogenesch, PhD, associate professor of Pharmacology, comments in a Nature feature about the German Mouse Clinic, where research mice undergo batteries of tests designed to identify every possible consequence of the animals' altered genes. The results, clinical scientists hope, will help them to work out what part each gene plays in cellular processes and in human disease. Hogenesch muses on how much faster his own field might have developed with the systematic phenotyping the clinic offers. The first mouse mutant with a disturbed circadian clock was made in 1997 and since then others have been found in individual laboratories. "If we had had mouse hospitals earlier," he says, "we could have advanced circadian biology by a decade."
• Bridging the Translational Gap 9 Jul 2009
  Garret A. FitzGerald, MD, director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics, is featured in a Nature Reviews Drug Discovery article about what is needed to train the next generation of translational medicine scientists. "Sadly, our academic medical centers have increasingly been dominated by the demands of clinical revenue generation," says FitzGerald. "Very few people can project their basic science into mechanistic studies in humans." Institutes such as ITMAT are essential to address this challenge, states the article. "We have to educate a new breed of individuals who can integrate the skill sets, and to do that we need a brand name — perhaps 'Translational Medicine and Therapeutics' — and to advertise it so that it is attractive to our best trainees," he adds.
• Grant Applications Swamp Agency 10 Jun 2009
  The National Institutes of Health, already groaning under the weight of grant applications brought on by a $10.4-billion economic stimulus package, is likely to be inundated with a second tidal wave of applications this autumn that would send success rates plummeting, agency officials predict in the journal Nature. Other researchers say that a serial wave of applications is being unwisely encouraged by university deans of research. Garret FitzGerald, MD, Director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics comments: “Deans have been told they will be rewarded by the number of grants that go out the door. This is irresponsible behavior.”
• New Axis in Hypertension 14 May 2009
  A study that appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and led by Garret FitzGerald, MD, director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics, was featured in Science-Business eXchange. The research describes a new target for maintaining healthy blood pressure and involves prostaglandins, fatty compounds important to the cardiovascular system. "To our surprise, deletion of FP [prostaglandin receptor F] reduced blood pressure and retarded atherogenesis despite the absence of detectable receptor expression in large blood vessels like the aorta or in atherosclerotic lesions in the mouse," said FitzGerald.
• Stimulus Money Sparks a Rush for Research Grants 6 May 2009
  With $10 billion up for grabs, medical scientists in Philadelphia and across the nation are actively applying for stimulus package funds. Glen Gaulton, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer, Garret Fitzgerald, MD, director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics, and Brian Strom, MD, director of the Center for Clincal Epidemiology and Biostatistics comment in a Philadelphia Inquirer article about the School of Medicine's efforts. Marianne Achenbach, Executive Director, Research Support Services, and Gaulton, appear in a photo accompanying the article.
• 8-Hour Workday May Be Biologically Hard-Wired 27 Apr 2009
  The 8-hour workday may be hard-wired in our genes. The Washington Times reports on research by John Hogenesch, PhD, and colleagues at Penn and the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences, who found that, in addition to the body's 24-hour circadian rhythms that are well known, some genes are also switched on once every 12 or 8 hours, indicating that shorter cycles of the circadian rhythm are also biologically encoded. Hogenesch, Associate Professor of Pharmacology in the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics at Penn, was the senior author of the study recently published in PLoS Genetics. "There is an obvious biological basis to a 12-hour rhythm. The 12-hour genes predicted dusk and dawn. These are two really, really stressful transitions that your body goes through and your mind goes through," Hogenesch said.
• Universities Gear Up to Harness Amplified Tech-Transfer 22 Apr 2009
  Carl June, MD, Director of Translational Medicine, Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute, comments in a Philadelphia Business Journal article about how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will boost the technology transfer efforts of area research universities. The NIH has directed $1 billion to its National Center for Research Resources for construction, repairs and alterations that support NIH-funded research institutions and $300 million for shared instrumentation and other capital equipment to support all NIH activities, among other ARRA funding programs. Last month June and colleagues applied for a grant to replace a $500,000 cell sorter that Penn bought in 2001 with a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. "It has a life span of about 10 years at best, costs $50,000 per year to maintain and now there's new technology out that's just cheaper and better," June said.
• Stronger Research Just One Item on Drug Agency's Wish List 20 Mar 2009
  The two public health veterans President Barack Obama has tapped to take charge of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) face a daunting challenge. Margaret Hamburg and Joshua Sharfstein, nominated to be FDA commissioner and deputy, respectively, will inherit an agency with fragmented authority and funding that has been stumbling from one crisis to the next. It's clear that FDA needs more money, better morale, and improved leadership, comments Garret FitzGerald, MD, director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics, in Science. He sits on the FDA Science Board, a group of outside advisers. But "let's imagine all those things are fixed," he continues. That's still not enough, he believes, to provide FDA with the scientific expertise it needs. To get that help, FitzGerald and others say, the FDA needs to pursue more scientific collaborations.
• Drug Firms Bet Big on High-Risk Deals 17 Mar 2009
  Amid financial crisis, drug giants Pfizer Inc., Merck & Co. and Roche Holding AG are pulling off an impressive feat: They've raised enough money to go on a $155 billion shopping spree. In Roche's case, its plan to buy the rest of Genentech risks altering an odd-couple partnership between the two that has worked well for nearly two decades. Last year, two-thirds of the revenue from Roche's top-selling pharmaceuticals came from Genentech-derived drugs. One reason for that success: Roche, a button-down Swiss company, stayed hands-off with Genentech - a freewheeling California shop where neckties are rare and staffers get "20% time" to work on side projects. Will Genentech's productive culture flourish under Roche's full control? "They're taking the risk of changing their own inspired approach," comments Garret Fitzgerald, MD, director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics, in the Wall Street Journal. Fitzgerald spent a fellowship year at Genentech in the late 1980s.
• Immune Cells Shrink Tumors in Mice 16 Feb 2009
  Project leader Carl H. June, MD, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and director of translational medicine for the Abramson Cancer Center, comments in a HealthDay News article about a new study appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that describes how tumors in mice have shrunk or disappeared after the animals were injected with genetically engineered immune system cells that target a protein found in certain human cancers. This work "indicates that small doses of these cells may have the potential in treating patients with large tumors," says June.