Mayassa Bou-Dargham, PhD, a post-doctoral research fellow in the Warren Pear Lab with a focus on immunology and cancer biology, specifically myeloid cells in infection and cancer, was recently featured in a Penn Medicine blog post. The post chronicles her journey from a small village in the mountains of Lebanon to a post-doctoral fellowship at Penn’s Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute (AFCRI).

A $25 million gift from an anonymous donor to Penn Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) will establish the Center for Epilepsy and Neurodevelopmental Disorders (ENDD), accelerating collaborative research in genetic therapies for neurodevelopmental disorders. This gift will bolster the efforts of an interdisciplinary group of clinicians and scientists at Penn and CHOP, led by director Benjamin Prosser, PhD, Associate Professor of Physiology, and co-directed by Ingo Helbig, MD, Assistant Professor of Neurology and Director of Genomic Science at CHOP, and by Beverly L. Davidson, PhD, Director of the Raymond G. Perelman Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics and Chief Scientific Strategy Officer at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, High Presidential Scholar Endowed Chair in Cell and Gene Therapy, and Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.

Risa Eichinger, MLS(ASCP)CM, CABP, Quality Assurance Technical Specialist in the Hematopoietic Stem Cell Laboratory, was part of first cohort from the Association for the Advancement of Blood & Biotherapies (AABB) to be awarded the Certified Advanced Biotherapies Professional (CABP) credential in December 2022. The CABP is the first certification for professionals in the field of biotherapies. AABB developed the CABP program in response to worldwide workforce shortages in the field of biotherapies and the challenges associated with identifying and retaining qualified employees.

Saba Ghassemi, PhD, a research assistant professor in the Milone Lab at the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies, has received a $100,000 research grant from the St. Baldricks Foundation to develop CAR T cells to fight pediatric glioblastoma (GBM) for her research project "Metabolic reprogramming of non-activated CAR T cells for pediatric GBM."

Kyle G. Rodino, PhD, D(ABMM), Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Assistant Director of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory and Director, Rittenhouse Molecular Laboratory, recently moderated the AACC's Clinical Chemistry Podcast about laboratory preparedness for monkeypox and future viral outbreaks, featuring experts from across the country, including Penn Medicine's Dr. Stuart Isaacs from from Infectious Diseases. The podcast serves as an extension of a recent expert panel Q&A on laboratory preparedness for the current monkeypox outbreak published in the journal Clinical Chemistry.

Christopher Sande, MD, a PGY4 resident in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, was one of three researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania to join the Uplifting Athletes’ 2023 Young Investigator Draft Class. Each will receive a $20,000 research grant through the non-profit, which awards early-career researchers with unrestricted grants for rare disease research each year.  Dr. Sande will use his grant on a project to uncover the genetic drivers of clonal hematopoiesis in those affected by telomere biology disorders, which put patients at an increased risk of developing certain blood cancers.

Roseann I. Wu, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, has been named to the American Board of Pathology’s Test Development and Advisory Committee for Cytopathology for 2023. The Committee is responsible for developing and reviewing the ABPath certification exam questions that assess and certify a physician’s education, knowledge, experience, and skills in order to provide high-quality care in the pathology profession.