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Over the summer University officials named two new Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) professors, the ninth and 10th since President Amy Gutmann launched the program in 2006 [“Proof of Concept,” Sept|Oct 2008].

Karen Glanz is an epidemiologist who specializes in the impact of behavior on health, especially the modification of risks for cancer and obesity. She will be the first PIK professor within the School of Nursing, which will share her appointment with the School of Medicine’s department of epidemiology and biostatistics in epidemiology. “She brings together public health, public education, and public policy in ways that are transforming peoples’ lives around the world,” said Provost Vincent Price. Glanz, who holds senior editorial positions at more than two dozen academic journals, had previously been a professor and research scholar at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.

A week later the School of Medicine got a second new PIK prof, its seventh overall. Shelley Berger is the new Daniel S. Och University Professor, with appointments in Penn Medicine’s department of cell and developmental biology and the College’s biology department. Berger, who comes to Penn from the Wistar Institute, is a leader in the burgeoning field of epigenetics, the study of genetic changes caused by mechanisms other than changes to the underlying DNA.

“Shelley Berger is revolutionizing our understanding of genetic information,” said Gutmann. “Her work is intrinsically interdisciplinary, and holds tremendous potential for not only treating devastating diseases such as cancer, but also preventing them entirely.”

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