PHILADELPHIA — Claudio Giraudo, PhD, assistant professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania and The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was named as a 2013 Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences.
Twenty-two of the nation’s most enterprising researchers were named Pew Scholars by The Pew Charitable Trusts. The scholarships provide flexible funding to early-career scientists researching the basis of perplexing health problems. The new scholars join a prestigious community of researchers who have gone on to become Nobel laureates, MacArthur fellows, Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award winners, and hundreds of other pioneers who earned Pew grants at the start of their careers.
"The Pew Scholar Award will significantly contribute to building up a strong foundation for my research focused on regulation of the immune response against viral infections and cancer,” says Giraudo. “In particular, this award will give me the chance to study what happens at the cell membrane during the body’s immune response, which could be therapeutically targeted to improve prognosis and quality of life of patients."
“The Pew scholars program gives innovative scientists both the freedom to take calculated risks and the resources to pursue the most promising, but untried, avenues for scientific breakthroughs,” said Rebecca W. Rimel, president and CEO of Pew. “Pew funding provides an ‘insurance policy,’ allowing our scientists to be adventurous with their research. Though their scientific fields are diverse, their commitment is uniform: harnessing scientific discovery to improve human health.”
The scholars program, launched in 1985, has granted more than $120 million in funding to more than 500 scientists at the beginning of their independent careers. The rigorously competitive program awards recipients $240,000 over four years to pursue their projects without direction or restriction. To be considered, applicants must demonstrate excellence and creativity in their research. This year, 179 institutions were invited to nominate a candidate, and 134 eligible nominations were received.
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.