BGS Career Development

Making It Count!

Uncategorized

Managing and Visualizing Your Research Workshop Series

by Leave a Comment


The Graduate Student Center and Penn Libraries are bringing you a series of workshops focused on managing and visualizing your research. Learn more at gsc.upenn.edu/events.

New NCATS/FDA Translational Science Interagency Fellowship – Applications due January 15, 2021

by Leave a Comment

The Translational Science Interagency Fellowship (TSIF) is a new postdoctoral fellowship opportunity developed by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  Fellows will be jointly mentored by NCATS and FDA scientists on a research project of mutual interest to both organizations. Fellows in this program will develop skills of value to future careers in academia, the pharmaceutical industry and government. 

At the FDA, fellows will receive formal training and mentoring in:

·         Relevant federal statutes, and

·         Regulations, principles and practices of FDA medical product review.

At NCATS, fellows will receive formal training and mentoring in:

·         The early stages of technology development, and

·         Preclinical and clinical translational science.

Currently there are seven mentor pairs/projects for this first class, and we hope to expand this over time.  These first projects are in the areas of:

1.      The use antisense oligonucleotides for treatment of rare diseases

2.      Development of in vitro 3D models (i.e., kidney organoids for examining drug metabolism and toxicity and models of atopic dermatitis)

3.      Informatics projects related to drug repurposing, prediction of drug safety and adverse events, and determining the scope of unapproved products in the marketplace

Applicants must be US citizens or permanent residents and have two years or less of postdoctoral training.  More information about potential projects, mentors, and the application process can be found here and in the attached flyer.

Questions about the fellowship and application process are welcome.  Please contact us at TSIFellowship@nih.gov (link sends e-mail)

Penn Contact Tracing Team

by Leave a Comment

As Philadelphia and the nation begin to lift restrictions on Stay at Home orders, methods for controlling further spread of COVID-19 will be increasingly important. The Penn Medicine Center for Health Care Innovation, Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics, and the Center for Public Health Initiatives are working with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health (PDPH) to strengthen local contact tracing capacity by combining traditional human outreach with digital strategies. 

At the behest of health system leadership, Drs. Kevin Volpp and Carolyn Cannuscio are pulling together a team to coordinate these efforts at Penn.

The Penn Contact Tracing Team represents a collaboration across schools, with more than 80 student volunteers, faculty, and staff from the MPH program, SOM, SON, and SP2 as well as strong input from leaders across a number of groups at Penn Medicine. Mohan Balachandran, Chief Operating Officer for Way to Health, is overseeing the digital strategies and Austin Kilaru (clinical) and Rachel Feuerstein-Simon (administrative) the human contact tracing efforts. We are grateful to many people for their contributions to date including PJ Brennan, Raina Merchant, Hillary Nelson, Mike Restuccia, Bill Hanson, Alison Buttenheim, David Asch, and Roy Rosin.

We are working to leverage a number of Penn Medicine health and social resources in support of the patients who are contacted, including COVID Watch, ImPACT, the Social Needs Team, and the COVID chatbot. Since its formal launch two weeks ago, over 60 volunteers from the Penn Contact Tracing team have connected with over 1300 Penn Medicine COVID patients and their contacts–with the overriding goal of supporting our community and breaking the chain of transmission. 

To streamline Penn’s communications with PDPH, inquiries regarding this collaboration should be directed to Kevin (volpp70@wharton.upenn.edu) or Carolyn (cannusci@upenn.edu). Please feel free to reach out with any questions or suggestions.