The University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia is one of the top research institutions in the world and is continuously expanding its research potential. Last year, the university opened a new Prematurity Research Center with the support of a $10 million donation from the March of Dimes Foundation of Philadelphia. Earlier this year, the university teamed up with the pharmaceutical company Novartis to open a new center on campus dedicated to cancer research, called the Novartis-Penn Center for Advanced Cellular Therapeutics (CACT).
The Center for Advanced Cellular Therapeutics, which is located on the University of Pennsylvania Medical Campus, is a $27 million project that will provide new laboratory and clinical space for physicians and scientists working to develop personalized cellular therapies for cancer treatments.
The CACT includes:
- 23,610 square feet of space for laboratories and cell therapy manufacturing.
- 6,300 square feet of space that will provide a "clean room" for cell engineering.
- One hundred professionals, specialized to work with cell therapy.
- The ability to manufacture cell therapy for four hundred patients per year.
Carl June, MD, of the UPenn Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and the director of the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies explained, “In only a few years, we have generated significant achievements that have moved the field of personalized cellular therapies forward, opening clinical trials to test these treatments not only for patients with blood cancers, but also those with solid tumors. The CACT will allow us to leverage this progress to develop and test new approaches more quickly and expand our ability to manufacture personalized cell therapies for a greater number of trials.”
The University of Pennsylvania, in partnership with the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, have been making advancements in the field of cellular therapy since they teamed up in 2012. In 2015, they made an advancement in using cellular therapy to treat brain cancer. Now, the CACT is expected to become an epicenter for cellular therapy research and development.
“The opening of the Novartis-Penn Center for Advanced Cellular Therapeutics is a significant milestone in our collaboration with Penn,” said President of Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Mark C. Fishman, MD. “It is our hope that discoveries will be made at this facility that could one day lead to new medicines to help cancer patients around the world.”
The University of Pennsylvania receives millions of dollars to fund research projects and develop new centers at the university each year. In the 2015 fiscal year, UPenn received nearly $458 million in life science funding.
Departments at the university receiving substantial amounts of this funding include:
- Internal Medicine/Medicine - $100.2 million
- Pathology - $48.1 million
- Pharmacology - $31.3 million
- Radiation-Diagnostic/Oncology - $22.7 million
- Microbiology/Immunology/Virology - $16 million
- Anatomy/Cell Biology - $15.7 million
Biotechnology Calendar, Inc. produces an annual life science table-top trade show event at UPenn that brings together laboratory suppliers with more than 425 active life science researchers in Philadelphia. The 17th Annual BioResearch Product Faire™ Event at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia will be held on May 12th, 2016. Laboratory suppliers interested in marketing products to researchers, principal investigators, grad students, post docs, lab managers, professors, purchasing agents and other lab staff are encouraged to learn more by visiting the link below:
