PHILADELPHIA — Eleven researchers from the Division of Gastroenterology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have been awarded a total of $6.1 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health. This year’s awards include ten K series career advancement grants and one Early Independence Award (a K series equivalent grant). The grants given to the 11 assistant professors, instructors and research associates will be used over the next two to five years to explore a range of topics related to GI health including chronic liver diseases, Hepatitis C, inflammatory bowel disease, esophageal diseases, colon cancer, pancreatic cancer, and cancer treatment.
“We are so proud of the high-caliber research being conducted by these young investigators,” said Anil K. Rustgi, chief of the division of Gastroenterology. “It’s an honor to have their efforts recognized by the NIH. These awards are a result of the focus and hard work each of them has demonstrated, but also they reflect the dedication of their mentors’ and our Division’s cohesive approach to career and professional development. We are excited to see the valuable contributions their research will make to the fields of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, and look forward to the establishment of their independent careers.”
The NIH’s K awards are designed to promote the career development of specific groups of individuals based on their past training and career stage. The objective of these programs is to bring candidates to the point where they are able to conduct their research independently and are competitive for additional grant support.
Among recipients of the groups’ K series career awards is Rotonya Carr, MD, who earlier this year was also named the recipient of the Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The other Penn GI researchers who received awards are Drs. Meenakshi Bewtra, Kimberly Forde, David Goldberg, Blair Madison, Frank Scott, Gregory Sonnenberg, Marie-Pier Tetreault, Vesselin Tomov, and Christina Twyman-St. Victor. Dr. Andrew Rhim, a K series award recipient and former researcher at Penn Medicine, is now on faculty at the University of Michigan.
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.