Blog Posts

Dr. Maureen  Murphy, Ira Brind Professor and program leader of the Molecular & Cellular Oncogenesis Program of The Wistar Institute Cancer Center, has been investigating the importance of inherited mutations in the gene encoding p53 tumor suppressor protein to determine cancer susceptibility in people of African descent and people of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, for the past twenty-two years.

Creating a new drug from scratch takes many years and billions of dollars. While discovery of new molecules against SARS-CoV-2 and other emerging viruses is imperative, the world also needs solutions for COVID-19 now. This is why there has been wide interest in repurposing existing drugs, for which safety and pharmacologic profiles are already available, as a viable strategy to save critical time and resources and quickly discover potential candidate drugs to combat the pandemic. 

As our state economy faces a long slog back to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, Wistar is poised to assist with the development of the workforce that will help enable that recovery. The Institute’s education and training programs provide just what is needed for curious, intellectually minded students to establish careers as biomedical research technicians and pursue other careers in the life sciences. 

The effects of COVID-19 have dramatically changed the way we live, learn and work. While many things have come to a standstill, Wistar research has never stopped and even new educational projects have managed to come to fruition. One shining addition to the Institute this summer is the newly constructed, state-of-the-art educational biomedical training suite.

Despite an unprecedented volume of research, there are still many unanswered questions on COVID-19, especially regarding the extremely varied clinical course the disease takes, ranging from asymptomatic to severe, even fatal. The evidence collected so far points to the so called “cytokine storm” as a major factor determining the final outcome.