Engineering Hope: Kyle Vining Earns Hartwell Foundation Award to Study Childhood Leukemia

Kyle Vining poses in his lab. — Kyle Vining, Assistant Professor in Preventive and Restorative Sciences in Penn Dental Medicine and in Materials Science and Engineering in Penn Engineering, will study childhood leukemia with a new grant.

Every year, thousands of American children are diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common form of childhood cancer. The disease begins in bone marrow, when immature cells called “blasts” run amok and overwhelm the tissue.

Now, Kyle Vining, Assistant Professor in Preventive and Restorative Sciences in Penn Dental Medicine and in Materials Science and Engineering in Penn Engineering, has received an Individual Biomedical Research Award from The Hartwell Foundation to explore a novel approach to improving treatment for childhood leukemia. Vining is among ten researchers representing eight institutions selected as a 2023 Hartwell Foundation awardee; Dr. Julia T. Warren of Penn Medicine is also an awardee.

“The proposed studies lay the foundation to make a major scientific impact in the childhood leukemia field and ultimately improve outcomes for children,” says Vining.

Read the full story on the Penn Dental website.