Jean-Christophe Beltra, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of E. John Wherry, PhD, director of the Penn Institute of Immunology, was named a 2021 Parker Scholar. The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy's Parker Scholars program supports graduate students and researchers entering their first postdoctoral appointment focused on high-impact, high-risk projects. Beltra works to unravel the role cytokines play in CD8 T cell exhaustion. As a post-doc in Wherry's lab, he described new subsets of exhausted CD8 T cells and the complex process that leads to their exhaustion, which was published in the journal Immunity in 2020. He is now focused on determining how cytokines can be guided and fine-tuned into a more effective combination partner with PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors.
Torrey Creed, PhD, an assistant professor of Psychiatry and director of the Penn Collaborative for CBT and Implementation Science, and Gregory Brown, PhD, a research associate professor of Clinical Psychology in Psychiatry and director of the Penn Center for the Prevention of Suicide, were selected to join Psych Hub's inaugural Scientific Advisory Board. Psych Hub is an online educational platform on mental health. Brown and Creed join 11 other experts in finding solutions to some of behavioral health's more pressing issues, including establishing quality metrics and integrating evidence-based practices throughout the continuum of care.
Maria Geffen, PhD, an associate professor in the department of Otorhinolaryngology, and Jay Gottfried, MD, PhD, the Arthur H. Rubenstein University Professor and a Penn Integrates Knowledge professor in the departments of Neurology and Psychology, were awarded a $300,000 "New Initiatives Grant" from the Charles E. Kaufman Foundation, a supporting organization of the Pittsburgh Foundation. The grant will assist with exploring how the brain synthesizes information from sound and smell. This work will establish the basis for a new collaboration between the Geffen and Gottfried laboratories, setting the stage for an in-depth research program that will signal a paradigm shift in how to study mechanisms of multisensory integration, not only for sounds and smells but also for combinations among all of the senses.
Stacey Kassutto, MD, director of Internal Medicine Residency Simulation Education and the associate program director for Ambulatory Pulmonary Fellowship Education, received the Emerging Educator Award from the Association of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Program Directors (APCCMPD). This achievement award honors up-and-coming clinician-educators for their work in delivering and promoting medical education in pulmonary and or critical care medicine at the local and regional levels. APCCMPD is the national association of program directors for all the pulmonary and critical care fellowships in the country.
David W. Oslin, MD, a professor of Psychiatry and executive director of the Stephen A. Cohen Military Family Clinic at Penn, was awarded the 2020 John B. Barnwell Award from the Department of Veteran Affairs Office of Research and Development (CSR&D division)—the organization's highest honor for outstanding achievement in clinical science research. Oslin received the award for scientific contributions that change clinical practice for veterans. Oslin is the director of the VISN 4 Mental Illness, Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC), and chief of behavioral health at the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center. In addition, he is a core investigator at the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion (CHERP). His research has focused on two main areas: the development and implementation of measurement-based care practices and the application of genetics to clinical care in order to bring precision mental health care to veterans and others.
Asad Usman, MD, MPH, an instructor in Anesthesiology and Critical Care and a NIH T32 Fellow, received the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists Early Career Investigator Award for his research on Rescue Transesophageal Echocardiography. He recently had his pilot work, titled Pre-Trial Logistical Run-up to the Rescue Transesophageal Echocardiography for In-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (ReTEECA) Trial, accepted for presentation. This award is designed to motivate physicians early in their training to pursue their interest in research that investigates topics in cardiac, thoracic, and vascular anesthesia and disease. The honor means Usman's abstract has been accepted for presentation at the SCA 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting & Workshops on Sunday, April 25, 2021.
