A team of researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has received a $3.8 million dollar grant from the National Institute of Health's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), to conduct a trial to study the impact of psoriasis treatment on vascular inflammation and lipid metabolism.
Penn researchers have previously shown that psoriasis has a significant impact on inflammation and cardiovascular disease. Studies have shown that severe psoriasis is linked to major adverse cardiovascular events, impaired HDL function, and that the risk of death from cardiovascular disease increased by 57 percent leading to a 5-year decrease in life expectancy.
The study will be led by Joel Gelfand, MD, MSCE, assistant professor of Dermatology and Epidemiology, and conducted in concert with investigators from a team of Penn Medicine departments including Dermatology (Abby Van Voorhees, MD, associate professor of Dermatology, Junko Takeshita, MD, PhD, post-doctoral fellow and instructor in Dermatology), Cardiovascular Medicine (Dan Rader, MD, professor of Medicine and Pharmacology; Muredach Reilly, MBBCh, associate professor of Medicine; Nehal Mehta, MD, MSCE, Director, Inflammatory Risk Clinic in Preventive Cardiology), Nuclear Medicine (Drew Torigian, MD, MA, associate professor of Radiology; Abass Alavi, MD, professor of Radiology), Biostatistics (Andrea Troxel, ScD, professor of Biostatistics). The team will bring their expertise together to address a complex and important health issue for patients with psoriasis.
Penn Medicine is one of the world’s leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, excellence in patient care, and community service. The organization consists of the University of Pennsylvania Health System and Penn’s Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine, founded in 1765 as the nation’s first medical school.
The Perelman School of Medicine is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $550 million awarded in the 2022 fiscal year. Home to a proud history of “firsts” in medicine, Penn Medicine teams have pioneered discoveries and innovations that have shaped modern medicine, including recent breakthroughs such as CAR T cell therapy for cancer and the mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines.
The University of Pennsylvania Health System’s patient care facilities stretch from the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania to the New Jersey shore. These include the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Chester County Hospital, Lancaster General Health, Penn Medicine Princeton Health, and Pennsylvania Hospital—the nation’s first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional facilities and enterprises include Good Shepherd Penn Partners, Penn Medicine at Home, Lancaster Behavioral Health Hospital, and Princeton House Behavioral Health, among others.
Penn Medicine is an $11.1 billion enterprise powered by more than 49,000 talented faculty and staff.