Fall 2011
Dear Alumni, Colleagues, and Friends,
Since arriving on campus this July, there is one question that I have been asked
most often: What excited you most about making the move to Penn Medicine?
While there are many answers, one predominates: Penn Medicine is uniquely
positioned among its peers to impact the future of academic medicine.
My experiences over the last two months have reinforced this in a profound way. The weekly news
of the discoveries made by our researchers, the innovation of our clinical faculty, and the excellence of our students at the Perelman School of Medicine are constant reminders of our impact, and
cannot possibly fit in one letter.
Penn's Translational Research Leads the Nation
Let me begin by highlighting an area of great
importance to the future of Penn Medicine:
translational medicine. The National Institutes
of Health (NIH) recently announced that Penn
ranked first in a review of the renewal applications
of the highly prestigious and select Clinical and
Translational Science Awards and awarded us
a new $55 million grant.
This award is a great tribute to the leadership of my
predecessor, Arthur Rubenstein, MBBCh. Arthur
founded the Institute for Translational Medicine and
Therapeutics (ITMAT) as the first in the world in
2005. He wisely charged Garret A. FitzGerald, M.D.,
to lead this effort and further aligned Penn's resources
by creating a number of disease-focused centers.
Together with our dynamic health system, Arthur
spearheaded the construction of the 500,000-squarefoot
Translational Research Center, which opened
just last spring with NIH Director Francis S. Collins,
M.D., Ph.D., as our keynote speaker.
This grant and the research building are concrete
symbols of Penn Medicine's commitment to bringing
basic science into the clinic quickly. In July, I had
the opportunity to speak to an audience of junior
investigators at a symposium sponsored by ITMAT
and saw firsthand a far more critical piece of
evidence: a group of limitlessly talented researchers
who are committed to innovation and a culture
of collaboration. As a physician-scientist whose
development was enhanced through participation in
cross-disciplinary research teams, I was heartened by
the momentum palpable in the room and the promise
of future discoveries.
The Best Faculty in the World
I had no qualms using this superlative to introduce
our faculty to the incoming medical school class and
their families at this year's White Coat Ceremony. The
excellence of Penn's faculty was undoubtedly a strong
attractor for me, and it is a privilege to be a physician
and a member of the faculty here. I am pleased to
report that over the past few months we continued to
attract the finest minds in medicine to join our ranks.
This summer, we welcomed David B. Roth, M.D.,
Ph.D., to Penn Medicine as our new chair of the
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.
An expert on the mechanisms of DNA repair, he
discovered that a particular type of break in the
chromosome triggers a process known as somatic
DNA recombination - and errors in that process
may lead to leukemias and lymphomas.
Dr. Roth has garnered many teaching awards during
his career and established a new pathobiology
program at NYU Langone Medical Center. He has
a dynamic vision to foster personalized medicine by
using the latest genomic techniques to enhance our
ability to make diagnoses and tailor treatments for
individual patients. I am sure he will be a remarkable
mentor to our students and junior faculty.
We also welcomed Penn faculty member Jill M.
Baren, M.D., to her new role as chair of the
Department of Emergency Medicine. Dr. Baren was
an ideal choice to lead one of the top NIH-funded
emergency medicine research programs: she built
a multidisciplinary research consortium known
as the Greater Philadelphia-Southern New Jersey
Neurological Emergencies Treatment Trials Network;
she has led clinical trials to investigate new therapies
for neurological emergencies; she was one of the
first physicians to hold a subspecialty certification in
pediatric emergency medicine; and she has developed
and taught clinical ethics courses at our Center
for Bioethics.
In September, two more faculty members joined
the Perelman School of Medicine. Ezekiel J. Emanuel,
M.D., Ph.D., a bioethicist who served as special
adviser for health policy in the Obama White House,
will chair the new Department of Medical Ethics
and Health Policy. He is the first Diane v.S. Levy and
Robert M. Levy University Professor, a chair created
through the generosity of Penn trustee and alumnus
Robert Levy and his wife, Diane. He will also be
Vice Provost for Global Initiatives, helping Penn
fulfill its commitment to global engagement. The
appointment, as President Amy Gutmann said, will
make Penn Medicine "unrivaled in our scope and
depth in bioethics."
In the crucial area of cancer care and research,
we recruited Chi Van Dang, M.D., Ph.D., to serve
as director of the Abramson Cancer Center and the
John H. Glick, M.D., Abramson Cancer Center
Director's Professor. A professor in five departments
at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine,
Dr. Dang also served as vice dean for research and
executive director of Hopkins' Institute for Cell
Engineering. His lab has made critical discoveries
in cancer and genetics. He possesses exactly the kind
of wide-ranging and collaborative intellect that will
continue the Abramson Cancer Center's outstanding
record of accomplishment.
Historic Philanthropic Partnerships
Penn Medicine's community of alumni and friends
is among the most committed and forward-looking in
medicine. Many of the institution's accomplishments
would not be possible without the generosity of
our donors.
In May, trustee Raymond Perelman and his late wife,
Ruth, gave Penn Medicine an unprecedented gift of
$225 million, and we renamed the medical school
in their honor. The Perelmans' gift - the largest in
U.S. history to name a medical school - came to us
as an unrestricted addition to our endowment. Its
impact will be enormous, as the Perelmans have given
us the power to use the gift for our highest funding
priorities: attracting the nation's most talented students
and faculty members while underwriting innovative
research initiatives. The gift will allow us to increase
financial aid to students by 20 percent next year. Sadly,
Ruth passed away in July, but this momentous gift will
serve as a wonderful tribute to this gracious woman.
Recently turned 94, Ray Perelman remains actively
engaged with the medical school and is inspired by
our medical students, as they are inspired in turn by his
accomplishments as a self-made businessman
and a generous philanthropist.
During the course of the summer, I had the opportunity
to attend two events related to prominent donorfunded
research initiatives: the Marian S. Ware
Alzheimer Program External Review Board meeting and a scientific workshop on fibrodysplasia ossificans
progressiva (FOP), which was supported by the Cali,
Weldon, and Weiss families and their friends. The work accomplished by these programs is truly innovative,
and it has been a distinct honor to meet the families
involved and to see firsthand the meaningful progress
they have enabled against these devastating diseases.
These are but two examples of how Penn scientists are
changing our understanding of disease and, based on
this knowledge, developing new treatments.
Generous friends also allowed us to record two critical
firsts this summer in research. A group of donors gave
us $10 million to establish an interdisciplinary center
focused on novel treatments for orphan diseases, an area traditionally scarce in funding. And the Abramson
Cancer Center research team, led by Carl H. June,
M.D., became the first in the world to use gene transfer
therapy to create immune cells, called T cells, which
specifically target tumors and also retain the ability
to detect any abnormal cells - helping prevent cancer
recurrence. The contributions of the Netter family at
the outset, and the Abramson family's ongoing support
of the infrastructure and operations of the Center, were
crucial to this breakthrough. The research results were
published in The New England Journal of Medicine and Science Translational Medicine, and have been
widely recognized in the general media.
Penn Medicine consistently ranks among the very top
academic medical centers in funding from the National
Institutes of Health, receiving nearly $480 million in
awards in FY11, which includes the final year of the
ARRA stimulus. Most of that money went to support
established projects that our scientific peers judged to have great promise. Donors help us greatly enhance our
research programs by both financing research projects
in their infancy and accelerating mature programs - thereby giving us the latitude to reward curiosity and
imaginative thinking.
The Class of 2015 Arrives
One of the most joyful roles of a dean involves
welcoming new students during the annual White Coat
Ceremony. Looking at the 166 students taking the
Hippocratic Oath for the first time, I felt great pride
in being part of Penn and tremendous excitement for
the students and their parents. The members of the
Class of 2015 come from 35 states and attended 62
undergraduate institutions, with more than a third
coming from Ivy League schools. The class is almost
evenly divided by gender, and almost one quarter of the
students are minorities underrepresented in medicine.
While one cannot know how the challenges of today
will shape medicine three decades from now, I can
predict one facet of our students' future: they will
never stop learning. That has certainly been my
experience and one of the reasons I love the profession
of medicine so much. At Penn Medicine, we all have
the opportunity to interact with and learn from thought
leaders in an astounding range of fields. It is these
interchanges where disciplines intersect that hold so
much potential for future innovation and discovery.
The students I have met seem to relish the dynamic
nature of medicine today, and I hope they will fully
participate in the vigorous intellectual life that Penn
Medicine has to offer.
Financial aid is a critical component in Penn's ability to
retain its prominent position, and I will call on donors
to join me in my commitment to attract the very best
students. It also provides our students with greater
flexibility and confidence as they consider various
career paths.
Planning for the Future
In the coming months, I look forward to many
opportunities to share my vision for Penn Medicine
with our alumni and friends and to learn of your views
and concerns. Please check our online calendar frequently, which includes events
both in Philadelphia and around the nation. These
events include the naming celebration for the Perelman
School of Medicine on October 26, which I hope you
will consider attending. I also invite you to keep up
with our students at Making the Rounds, the recently
launched blog about student life at the Perelman
School of Medicine, at alumni.med.upenn.edu/blog.
The abundance of talent and commitment at Penn
Medicine are necessary elements to our success,
but they are not sufficient to guarantee the ultimate
greatness and impact that we all desire. To lead in
this era of daunting challenges, we need to adapt
to a changing environment, exploit every resource,
break down communication barriers, and see beyond
the common uses of technology to the innovative
applications that will forever change medicine. To guide
us, the faculty, staff, and I, with input from alumni
and friends, will spend months developing a long-term
strategic plan.
I look forward to your continuing support
and engagement so that, together, we will create
a healthier world for all.
J. Larry Jameson, M.D., Ph.D.
Executive Vice President of the University
of Pennsylvania for the Health System
Dean, Perelman School of Medicine |
