Penn Awarded $1.1 Million from the Cardiovascular Medical Research Fund to establish the Penn IPAH Center for Cell Studies
12/19/2005 | Research News

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine received $1.1 million dollars from the Cardiovascular Medical Research Education Fund (CMREF) to establish the Penn Idiopathic Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (IPAH) Center for Cell Studies. The five-year grant is part of a national network that will study the molecular and cellular origins of idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension.

IPAH is a rare lung disorder in which the blood pressure in the pulmonary artery rises far above normal levels. In response to these pressure rises, the wall of the pulmonary artery thickens, causing the heart to work harder and eventually fail. What triggers this thickening is not known in a lot of cases. Although there is no known cure for the disease, treatments are available. Many patients with pulmonary hypertension, however, continue to worsen and some eventually require a heart-lung transplant.

The CMREF research initiative is designed to support a network of multidisciplinary, collaborative transplant and research centers to study the origins of IPAH. A coordinating center will be responsible for the design, maintenance and analysis of the IPAH database.

"This field has traditionally been individual institutions performing their own research, with little direct communication between groups," said Peter Jones, PhD, director of the Penn/CMREF Center. "The idea of networking and pooling our resources is going to get us to better treatments and hopefully a cure for this disease much faster than working individually."

Penn's IPAH Center will have specific tasks to perform, including, acquiring control and IPAH tissues, cells and fluids from patients, and using these samples to identify new markers using state-of-the art cellular and molecular biology approaches ranging from proteomics to imaging.

"What this center is really focused on is idiopathic hypertension, hypertension with no known cause," added Jones. "We want to discover new molecular and genetic markers for this disease, then feed our results to other institutes within the network that are doing additional types of research on idiopathic hypertension. On an annual basis we will meet to share and discuss our findings then continue to move forward."

Darren Taichman, MD, PhD, Associate Director of the Pulmonary and Vascular Disease Program at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, part of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, is working with Jones and is leading the effort to collect information and samples to be used in the study. "We have been consenting patients to collect samples of their blood, then we will get some follow up information like medicines they are taking and if there is any family history of hypertension," explained Taichman. "This will help characterize the samples we pass to Dr. Jones. Once this is done the patients' role is complete, but the information they provide allows us to analyze the laboratory findings in the context of how well a patient does with treatment"

Over the last several years numerous hypertension drugs have entered the market. From a clinical standpoint, finding which drug is best for a given patient is one of the study's primary goals. "The problem right now is we don't know if one drug is better than the other for a chosen individual," concluded Taichman. " Since we are talking about a disease that can progress at a rapid pace you would love to know ahead of time that a certain drug will be most beneficial to a certain patient, versus any of the other different drugs."

Jones adds, "It would be great if we could use the information we find to develop new diagnostic markers or targeted therapies for IPAH treatments and discover the repercussions for other diseases, including certain forms of cancer and atherosclerosis, that share certain characteristics of IPAH. Time will tell."

Jones and Taichman's research will be based at Penn's multi-disciplinary Institute for Medicine and Engineering, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and the Pulmonary, and the Allergy and Critical Care Section of Presbyterian Medical Center (PMC).

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•  Postdocs received doctoral degrees from: Swarthmore/Penn, U. Illinois, Yale, Albany Med College, U. Delaware, and Penn

•  Predocs received Bachelor degrees from: Columbia, NC State, Georgia Tech., U. Texas Austin, U. Kentucky, and Penn.

Dr. Peter Lloyd Jones

Welcome to Dr. Peter Jones, Associate Professor of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, recruited from the University of Colorado Department of Pediatrics, Denver in July 2005. Dr Jones is a long-standing IME member, having been at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia 1998-2000 during which time he forged excellent collaborative ties with multiple IME investigators. We are delighted to have successfully recruited him back to Penn. His laboratory is in the Vagelos Building.

Peter's research programs are in pulmonary vascular genesis and angiogenesis particularly the role of homeobox gene transcription factors, the regulation and functions of tenascin-C in pulmonary vascular disease, the cellular and molecular basis of lung morphogenesis, adhesion-dependent control of pulmonary endothelial cell heterogeneity, and integrin mediated regulation of vascular smooth muscle cell gene expression. Thus he spans tissue physiology, extracellular matrix, adhesion sites, biomaterials and surfaces, integrin biology, and transcriptional regulation. There is a strong interdisciplinary and technology approach to his work including three-dimensional tissue culture models and nano-engineered devices to measure cell force and polymer chemistry. These are integrated into cutting edge cellular, developmental and molecular biology. Thus, he effectively combines an integrated approach to important elements pulmonary vascular cell and molecular pathobiology. The disease targets not only fit within the Cardiovascular Pathology/IME research interests but also reach out extensively to the pulmonary and vascular communities throughout Penn and CHOP. Dr. Jones is planning to establish a Center for Cell Studies in Idiopathic Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension within the IME.

Dr. Jones received his PhD in Experimental Pathology from Queens College, Cambridge University and received Postdoctoral training at UC-Berkeley and the University of Toronto.

Dr. Irena Levitan

Bon Voyage to Dr. Irena Levitan, Research Associate Professor of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine who has accepted a tenured position in the department of Surgery at Northwestern University School of Medicine, Chicago. Dr. Levitan joined the IME and department in 1999 from a postdoctoral position in Physiology at Hahnemann University. She received her PhD from Hebrew University Jerusalem in Physiology. An expert electrophysiologist, Irena has published extensively at the interface of ion channels, biophysics, and membrane lipidsa and has collaborated with numerous IME members. She is a wonderful citizen of the IME and we will miss her great personality and excellent scientific skills.

Congratulations to IME Trainees who have moved to Faculty, Industry and Postdoctoral positions during this past year:

Dr. Anthony Passerini (Postdoc, Davies Lab) was recruited to the faculty at the University of California-Davis, Department of Biomedical Engineering.

Dr. Helim Aranda-Espinoza (Postdoc, Discher Lab) was recruited to a faculty position at the University of Maryland,Department of Biomedical Engineering.

Dr. Craig Simmons (Postdoc, Davies Lab) was recruited to the faculty of the University of Toronto, Departments of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and Biosciences.

Dr. Jocelyn Clark (Postdoc with Levy Lab) was recruited to the Medtronics Corporation in Minneapolis.

Dr. Richard Magid (Postdoc, Davies Lab) moved to the University of Tennessee, Department of Biomedical Engineering.

Dr. Dhaval Gosalia (PhD with Diamond Lab) was recruited to Merck at West Point.

Dr. Jason Nichol (PhD with Gooch Lab) will move to a Postdoctoral position at MIT at the end of 2005.

Dr. Rebecca Gusic-Schaffer (PhD with Gooch Lab and postdoctoral clinical research training with Drs.Mohler and Wilensky) has taken a position with Novo-Nordisk.

Dr. David Kaufmann (Clinical Fellow, Davies Lab) iwas recruited to Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at Mt. Sinai Medical College, NY.