Venkata (Sai) Chaluvadi, a graduate student in Neuroscience, has been awarded $120,000 by the Rosenau Family Research Foundation (RFRF) to study lipid accumulation and macrophage responses in Krabbe disease. RFRF’s mission is to improve the lives of people impacted by Krabbe Disease and Cystic Fibrosis through research funding and disease advocacy.
Daniel J. Rader, MD
Daniel J. Rader, MD, chief of Translational Medicine and Human Genetics, has been named as one of three American Heart Association 2024 Merit Award winners. Rader received a $1 million grant that will fund his research that delves into the genetics of lipid metabolism and cardiovascular disease. By studying large-scale human genetics, he aims to uncover new genes and pathways influencing blood lipids like cholesterol, linked to conditions such as coronary heart disease. Focusing on liver-expressed genes through computational and experimental approaches, the goal is to unravel molecular mechanisms and explore potential therapeutic strategies.
Yvette Sheline, MD
Yvette Sheline, MD, the McLure Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Research and director of the Center for Neuromodulation in Depression and Stress, along with collaborators at three other universities, has received a $4 million award from the National Institutes of Health to investigate novel brain mechanisms of anxious misery—a designation that includes generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, and dysthymic disorder. Outcomes will provide further understanding of the brain mechanisms underlying anxious misery, driving progress toward personalized interventions. The grant will pool data from Sheline’s original Human Connectomes Related to Human Disease (CRHD) grant with data from three other CRHD sites at Stanford University, UCLA, and Northeastern University, as well as two large datasets with comparable healthy control samples, including a data coordinating site at Washington University in St. Louis.
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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.
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