PHILADELPHIA — Mitchell D. Schnall, MD, PhD, has been named Chair of the Department of Radiology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Currently, Dr. Schnall is the Matthew J. Wilson Professor of Research Radiology and Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Radiology.
Schnall completed his medical training as a radiology resident at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was chief resident in 1989. He was appointed as an assistant professor in 1991, an associate professor in 1994, and professor in 2002. For seven years, he was Chief of Magnetic Resonance Imaging and has served as the department’s Vice Chair for Research since 1997.
“Dr. Schnall is an international leader in translational biomedical imaging research, and his work has led to fundamental changes in imaging approaches for breast and prostate cancer,” said J. Larry Jameson, MD, PhD, dean of the Perelman School of the Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and executive vice president for the Health System. “We are confident that his combination of research excellence and constant focus on clinical applications will lead our thriving Department of Radiology to even greater achievements.”
His academic background reflects Penn’s dedication to interdisciplinary education. As a University Scholar, Schnall was able to pursue a customized curriculum integrating physics and medicine culminating in an undergraduate degree in physics, a medical degree and a PhD in biophysics from the University of Pennsylvania.
He currently serves as the Principal Investigator of the American College of Radiology Imaging Network, an NCI funded cooperative group that has made several seminal contributions to cancer imaging including the NLST trial that demonstrated the effectiveness of CT lung cancer screening to reduce lung cancer mortality. He is also a principal investigator for the recently funded Penn Center for Innovation in Personalized Breast Screening, and was also a co-principal investigator of a five-year, $10 million grant to study the progression of breast cancer using state-of-the-art imaging techniques and animal models, with the goal of developing more effective therapies. With that grant, the Perelman School of Medicine was named a Breast Cancer Center of Excellence by the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program.
Schnall also serves on multiple editorial boards and scientific advisory committees including the National Cancer Institute’s Clinical Trials and Translational Research Advisory Committee. He is a member of the Radiology Society of North America and the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and was elected as a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and the Association of American Physicians.
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.