Research Awards of IME Members

November, 2000
Dr. Peter F. Davies, was the recipient of the American Heart Association Special Recognition Award at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2000 held in New Orleans in November. IME Director Peter Davies received a Year 2000 Special Recognition Award of the Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology Council in recognition of his longstanding investigations into hemodynamics and mechanotransduction mechanisms in vascular cells.

July, 2000
Dr. Leif Finkel, Professor of Bioengineering, and member of the IME, has received a $1 million award from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. A 1976 graduate of the University of Maryland, he received a Ph.D. in biophysics from Penn in 1985.

Over the next five years, the award will support an Interdisciplinary Science project on "Meso-scale Optical Brain Imaging of Perceptual Learning"

The proposal was prepared by Penn faculty form bioengineering, neuroscience, and physics. Co-PI's are Kwabena Boahen, IME and Assistant Professor of Bioengineering; Diego Contreras and Brian Salzberg, Neuroscience; and Arjun Yodh, IME, and Professor of Physics. Supporting Scientists are George Gerstein and Larry Palmer from Neuroscience.

Louis J. Soslowsky, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, and member of the IME, and his group have won the Charles S. Neer Award for Excellence in Basic Science Research from the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons presented on Saturday, March 18, 2000, in Orlando. This award is based on the "best research" from the previous year and was judged against approximately 350 papers this year. The award is for his paper on "Total and non-recoverable strain fields of the glenohumeral joint capsule under shoulder subluxation", by Soslowsky, L.J., Malicky, D.M., Mouro, C.M., Bey, M.J., Frisancho, J.C., Lindholm, S.R., and Kuhn, J.E. This is the second year in a row that Dr. Soslowsky and his group have received this award!

McKay Orthopaedics Research Laboratory

Dennis E. Discher, Ph.D., IME Faculty, and Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering (secondary appointments: Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering; also a member of the PMI and the LRSM) was awarded a prestigious PECASE -- Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Approximately 20 awards are made annually through the National Science Foundation in all scientific, medical, and engineering disciplines to junior faculty throughout the country. Dr. Discher received this award for research focusing on the adhesion and mechanics of normal and dystrophic muscle cell membranes as a cellular engineering basis for gene therapy. More information on Dr. Discher and his research can be found on the IME web site, or on his laboratory's.

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