Research Summary

Research in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Penn is one of the three core missions and encompasses many areas of expertise. Major focused strengths and scientific synergies have emerged within the Department in recent years, and as such, the Department’s research efforts have been organized into three broadly defined scientific divisions: the Division of Cancer and Immunobiology, the Division of Neuropathology/Neurodegeneration, and the Division of Diagnostic Innovation.

With a longstanding research focus on fundamental biophysical aspects of diseases, the Department is one of the few places where the basic science divisions and clinical practices are still linked, thus bridging the medical school and health services. Resulting advantages to both include providing resources, intellectual and financial; fostering translational research; ensuring that basic science observations are applied towards patient treatment and diagnosis; and establishing accessibility and dialogue between clinicians and basic scientists. As part of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, the Department is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding for biomedical research from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). 

Research Initiatives

• intracellular signaling
• molecular mechanisms of leukemogenesis and sarcomagenesis, with special emphasis on aberrant transcriptional factors; RNA pathobiology
• cellular development, such as lymphocyte, melanocyte, and bone development
• endothelial cell and platelet pathobiology
• metastasis and behavior of cells in situ and in three-dimensions
• proteomics and protein modeling
• emerging infectious diseases, including HIV
• neurodegenerative mechanisms
• experimental therapeutics