Immune Health

The Immune Health Future, Today

Breaking the code of the immune system could provide a new fundamental way of understanding, treating, and preventing every type of disease. Penn Medicine is investing in key discoveries and building infrastructure to make that bold idea a reality.

Building on the Body’s Wisdom: The Age of Immunotherapy

Treatments that manipulate or repair the immune system are becoming more commonplace. An age of immunotherapy is underway in medicine, starting with lifesaving cancer treatments and radiating out to have wider impacts.

Life, Gained: Walter Styer’s CAR T Story

Penn patient Walter Styer’s 11 life-filled years (and counting), after being the 10th participant in an early trial, are a testament to the impact of CAR T cell immunotherapy.

Engineering the Immune System to Tackle Solid Tumors

Scientists are still learning how to help CAR T cells evade the body’s defenses so they can effectively treat cancers in the breasts, brain, lungs, pancreas, and other organs.

Additional News Releases

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  The Immunotherapy Revolution for Autoimmune Diseases

  With a deeper understanding of the immune system, there are growing possibilities to selectively turn down only the parts that malfunction—with hopes to someday cure these conditions.
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  Energizing the Immune Army

  A phenomenon known as “T cell exhaustion” has stymied some efforts to develop powerful immune-based therapies. Through decades of discovery, Penn Medicine researchers are learning why and what to do about it.
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  Why We Get an Annual Flu Vaccine And Someday Might Not Have To

  Penn researchers are at the forefront of understanding the evolutionary arms race that explains why we get annual flu and COVID-19 vaccinations—and the scientific quest for a “one and done” alternative.
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  Penn Medicine’s BioBank is a Growing, Living Laboratory

  From tissue samples to genomic data, the Penn Medicine BioBank is harnessing the power of more than a quarter of a million Penn Medicine patients to make important discoveries to improve care.
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  Penn Researcher Studies Hidden Immune Connections in Arthritis

  Alexis Ogdie, MD, MSCE, wants to uncover the role of the immune system when some people with psoriasis go on to develop inflammatory arthritis.
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  How Penn Medicine is Defining Immune Health

  Scientists at Penn Medicine are deeply profiling individual immune systems to understand how they function as a fingerprint, a piece of your health-and-disease puzzle that’s unique to you, but also a key to new ways of thinking about health care.
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  Philanthropy Gives Immune Health Its Moment

  Gifts to the Dean’s Innovation Fund provide flexible resources that enable investment in the most promising high-risk, high-reward projects in Penn Medicine’s research.