October 4, 2005

Thomas Cappola, MD, ScM of the University of Pennsylvania Health System Wins
Prestigious Jay N. Cohn New Investigator Award

(Philadelphia, PA) - Thomas Cappola, MD, ScM, cardiologist and heart failure specialist at the University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS) has won the Jay N. Cohn New Investigator Award in Clinical/Integrative Physiology. The award is given out annually - as one of three award competitions - at the Heart Failure Society of America (HFSA) yearly meeting. The 2005 meeting was held in Boca Raton, Florida in September.

These awards are to recognize research excellence in young investigators. HFSA officials explain that a special committee of reviewers picked the top five abstracts submitted in advance of the meeting. Then, the finalists were invited to present their research results in highly profiled scientific sessions during the meeting.

Cash prizes (provided by an educational grant from Novartis Pharmaceuticals) were awarded, based on the abstract presentation. Assisting in Cappola’s presentation were Daniel Dries, MD, MPH and Kenneth Margulies, MD, both cardiologists at UPHS. Cappola’s presentation was on a novel approach to analyze cardiac gene transcription in human subjects with advanced heart failure. Cappola is also an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Penn Cardiovascular Institute.

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Penn’s School of Medicine is ranked #2 in the nation for receipt of NIH research funds; and ranked #4 in the nation in U.S. News & World Report’s most recent ranking of top research-oriented medical schools. Supporting 1,400 fulltime faculty and 700 students, the School of Medicine is recognized worldwide for its superior education and training of the next generation of physician-scientists and leaders of academic medicine.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System includes: its flagship hospital, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, consistently rated one of the nation’s “Honor Roll” hospitals by U.S. News & World Report; Pennsylvania Hospital, the nation's first hospital; Penn Presbyterian Medical Center; a faculty practice plan; a primary-care provider network; two multispecialty satellite facilities; and home health care and hospice.

This release is available online at http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/News_Releases/oct05/Cappolaaward.htm