Pennington Biomedical Celebrates a Landmark Year in 2024

December 20, 2024 · Baton Rouge, LA

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Highlights including launching Greaux Healthy and Small Shifts efforts, along with numerous awards and research findings

Pennington Biomedical Research Center is proud to reflect on a landmark year in 2024, marked by significant advancements in research, outreach and innovation.

The year began with the launch of the Center’s Small Shifts campaign, empowering individuals to make manageable, lasting changes in their daily lives to improve overall health outcomes. Focusing on nutrition, exercise and mental health, Small Shifts provides tips and advice for people to incorporate small changes to their daily routines that can have life-long impacts.

Further cementing the Center’s commitment to improving health and well-being across Louisiana and beyond, the Greaux Healthy initiative officially launched in 2024. Developed with funding from the State of Louisiana, Greaux Healthy implements 35 years of Pennington Biomedical research and discoveries to inform tools, resources and programing for children, parents, physicians and educators throughout the state.

In addition to these milestone initiatives, Pennington Biomedical brought in a number of new grants and contracts in 2024, bringing the total value of the Center’s active portfolio to more than $215 million.

“This has been a year of growth and impact for Pennington Biomedical,” said Dr. John Kirwan, Executive Director. “Through these initiatives and our continued dedication to groundbreaking research, we’ve strengthened our mission to combat obesity, diabetes, and other chronic conditions affecting our community. As we look to the future, Pennington Biomedical remains committed to leading the charge in innovative research and health advocacy, helping individuals and communities achieve their healthiest lives.”

This year alone, Pennington Biomedical has achieved numerous research and clinical advancements, including:

• Developing a new tool to detect endometrial cancer, the fastest growing cancer in young women, earlier than ever before.
• Participating in the 12-year “Alliance of Randomized Trials of Medicine vs Metabolic Surgery in Type2 Diabetes,” or ARMMS-T2D, study that showed bariatric surgery provides long-term glucose control, Type 2 diabetes remission.
• Finding that BAM15, a compound that makes mitochondria less efficient at producing energy, extended life span in fruit flies, and was associated with less body fat and increased muscle function.
• Joining experts from around the world in developing the first international consensus on fasting terminology and key definitions.

Pennington Biomedical researchers were recognized in a number of ways in 2024 as well, including:

• Steven Heymsfield and Dr. Peter Katzmarzyk being named among the most influential researchers in the world who demonstrate significant and broad influence in their fields, according to Clarivate Analytics’ 2024 List of Highly Cited Researchers.
• Jackie Stephens being elected Vice President of The Obesity Society's Governing Board Executive Committee in a special election.
• Leanne Redman being named new director of Pennington Biomedical’s Nutrition Obesity Research Center, or NORC. The Pennington Biomedical/Louisiana NORC is one of 11 across the U.S. funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
• Florina Corpodean being named as the 2024 Resident Research Award recipient by the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract, or SSAT.
• Kaja Falkenhain, a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Redman’s Reproductive Endocrinology and Women's Health Laboratory, being recognized with the 2024 George A. Bray Doctoral Dissertation Award during ObesityWeek.
• Jeffery Keller being named Principal Investigator to oversee Answer ALS’ open access data repository, Neuromine.

Pennington Biomedical also embarked on new endeavors that will continue to grow further in 2025.

A group from the Center traveled to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for a series of strategic partnership meetings focused on building collaborations with key institutions as part of our mission of advancing healthcare and biomedical research. Discussions continue about opportunities for Pennington Biomedical to partner on projects related to precision medicine, chronic disease management, and training programs.

Pennington Biomedical was awarded a new Obesity Medicine Fellowship from the U.S. Obesity Medicine Council that will begin in 2025. The program, the first of its kind in Louisiana, is a collaboration between Pennington Biomedical and Louisiana State University Health New Orleans School of Medicine.

Lastly, Pennington Biomedical was named as spokes in both the Customer Experience and Investor Catalyst Hubs of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H, a nationwide health innovation network.

More details on accomplishments and more from 2024 can be found online at www.pbrc.edu/news/media/2024/.