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3 faculty awarded MD Research Facilitation Awards

HERSHEY — Three faculty members in the Penn State College of Medicine were recently awarded MD Research Facilitation Awards.

The awards, given to faculty by the College of Medicine under a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Health using Tobacco Settlement Funds, are designed to support, encourage and enhance the productivity of outstanding physician faculty in clinical departments who are actively engaged in grant-funded research.

The awardees were: Dr. Timothy J. Mosher, associate professor of radiology and orthopedics and rehabilitation; Dr. Leslie J. Parent, associate professor of medicine and microbiology and immunology; and Dr. W. Brian Reeves, professor of medicine.

Each MDRFA scholar receives some salary support and related benefits to pursue their research efforts.

Mosher, a graduate of Penn State's College of Medicine, is a diagnostic radiologist and chief of the MRI Clinical Service Unit at Penn State Hershey Medical Center. His primary research interest is development and application of novel MRI techniques for the study of cartilage in human joints. In particular, Mosher studies the changes in Type II collagen matrix — a collection of proteins that acts as the building block of cartilage — due to diabetes, aging or the early onset of osteoarthritis.

A graduate of Duke University School of Medicine, Parent is a faculty member in the Departments of Medicine and Microbiology and Immunology in the College of Medicine. She investigates the interactions between cancer-causing viruses and the cells they infect. Specifically, Parent studies the signals and factors involved in the movement of viral proteins through the cell during virus replication. Understanding how viruses replicate may lead to better ways to control and treat viral-induced tumors.

Reeves, a graduate of Jefferson Medical College, is chief of the Division of Nephrology, Department of Medicine, Penn State Hershey Medical Center. Reeves studies the mechanisms of kidney (renal) failure, a serious complication of diabetes, including the expression of genes in the kidneys. This work may lead to identification of the genes that cause kidney disease, and possible diagnostics and therapeutics to treat the disease.

Last Updated March 19, 2009

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