2025 News Feed
Pennington Biomedical’s Dr. Yun Shen Awarded $250,000 to Explore AI for Hypertension Management in Type 2 Diabetes Care
Pennington Biomedical Research Center’s Dr. Yun Shen will lead a team to explore the use of AI for precision hypertension management in Type-2 diabetes care. The research is funded through an award of $250,000 from the Collaboration in Action Program, established by Championship Health Partners LSU and Our Lady of the Lake Health.
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Pennington Biomedical Among AWI Awards to Advance the Welfare of Animals Used in Research
The Animal Welfare Institute, or AWI, is pleased to announce the 2024 winners of the Refinement Research Award, which funds research projects that develop or test novel refinement methods, and the Implementing Refinement Grant, which funds the purchase of equipment or training meant to improve the welfare of animals used in research.
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Pennington Biomedical Researchers Uncover Role of Hormone in Influencing Brain Reward Pathway and Food Preferences
When faced with multiple food options and ultimately choosing one, the factors of that decision-making process may be more physiological than previously assumed. A group of scientists led by Pennington Biomedical Research Center’s Dr. Christopher Morrison recently discovered that the hormone fibroblast growth factor 21, or FGF21, plays an influential role in brain reward mechanisms like those involved in dietary choices.
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Can Exercise Help Colon Cancer Survivors Live as Long as Matched Individuals in the General Population?
Physical activity may help colon cancer survivors achieve long-term survival rates similar to those of people in the general population, according to a recent study published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.
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Pennington Biomedical’s Wellness Day for Women Celebrates 25 Years
The Irene W. Pennington Wellness Day for Women celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2025 as it returns to Pennington Biomedical on Saturday, March 8, from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. The event features a wide array of health screenings, services and other activities to participants from across the Capital region. Registration is open now and can be accessed on the Pennington Biomedical website.
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New Toolkit Empowers Healthcare Providers with Evidence-Based Strategies for Childhood Obesity Prevention and Treatment
Greaux Healthy—a public service initiative powered by Pennington Biomedical Research Center, in partnership with the State of Louisiana—is proud to announce the release of the Childhood Obesity Prevention, Evaluation and Treatment Toolkit, a comprehensive resource designed to equip healthcare providers with practical, evidence-based guidance for preventing, evaluating, and treating childhood obesity and its related comorbidities.
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It All Starts in the Lab
Each day when Dr. Jason Collier arrives at his office, he sees a poster of a child with hundreds of needles across their arms and legs. The image represents how many insulin shots that child would need over a several-month period to control their blood glucose. “That’s a very big motivating factor to solve the problems that are in front of us,” he says.
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Global Launch of the Lancet Commission on Definition and Diagnostic Criteria of Clinical Obesity Recording Available Online
The Commission’s report made headlines in thousands major media outlets around the world. Watch the video recording of the launch event where members of the Commission present the key findings and discuss their implications for practice and policy with guest experts gathering at the Royal College of Physicians in London and at Pennington Biomedical Research Centre in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
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Pennington Biomedical Researchers Assemble Comprehensive History of Electronic Health Records and their Role in Medical Research
Dr. Yun Shen and Dr. Gang Hu of Pennington Biomedical Research Center have recently published a piece in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, or JMIR. The study titled “Twenty-Five Years of Evolution and Hurdles in Electronic Health Records and Interoperability in Medical Research: Comprehensive Review,” explores how electronic health records’ use in medical research has evolved over the past 25 years. Dr. Shen and Dr. Hu have extensive experience in working with electronic health records to study chronic diseases, population health trends, and predictive analytics.
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Pennington Biomedical’s Dr. Kaja Falkenhain Awarded Postdoctoral Fellowship from the American Heart Association
Dr. Kaja Falkenhain, postdoctoral researcher at Pennington Biomedical Research Center, has been awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the American Heart Association. The fellowship comes with a grant of over $150,000 to be used over two years to support Dr. Falkenhain's research project, titled “Craving Control: Rewiring the Reward Circuitry of the Human Brain in the Modern Food Environment,” which will study the brain’s reward circuitry and ingestive behavior at the intersection of obesity medication and modern food environment.
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