Mentor Areas
Sean Hennessy leads Penn's Center for Pharmacoepidemiology Research and Training (CPeRT), and conducts research in the field of pharmacoepidemiology, which is the study of the health effects of drugs and other medical products in populations. He and his colleagues identified a survival benefit of potassium supplementation in users of loop diuretics, and found that this survival benefit increases with hotter outdoor temperature. They also found that the survival benefits of statin drugs increases with hotter outdoor temperature. He and his colleagues study serious health consequences of drug-drug interactions involving high-risk drugs including anticoagulants, antidiabetes drugs, and antiplatelet agents. Their research has produced crucial knowledge about the cardiovascular safety of many widely-used drugs for mental health conditions in including ADHD, depression, and schizophrenia. They also evaluated an early approach to using health insurance data to improve prescribing, finding it ineffective despite its federal mandate. This contributed to the omission of a requirement for drug utilization review programs in Medicare Part D. He co-led a pair of studies that demonstrated the effectiveness and safety of the SA14-14-2 vaccine for Japanese encephalitis (JE), which subsequently led to the immunization of millions of children per year in populous countries including Cambodia, India, Malaysia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Use of that vaccine has been credited with reducing the worldwide incidence of JE. He and his colleagues developed the trend-in-trend research design for studying the effects of rapidly increasing or declining exposures. He was the senior author of one of two citizen petitions to the US Food and Drug Administration that led to re-labeling of metformin, the best-proven therapy for type 2 diabetes, to permit its use in persons with mild to moderate renal insufficiency.
Description:
Although the safety and efficacy of prescription drugs are studied prior to their approval, these studies are done in relatively small groups of patients who are younger, less medically complicated, and take fewer other medications than the populations who will take the drugs once there are approved. Therefore, significant knowledge gaps exist about the real-world safety and effectiveness of drugs at the time that they are approved. Our group uses healthcare data to study the real-world effects of drugs used alone and in combination with other drugs. We are most interested in discussing project ideas conceived by students.
Preferred Qualifications
Curiosity and ideas for one or more projects that you may be interested in pursuing with mentorship.
Details:
Preferred Student Year
First-year, Second-Year, Junior, Senior
Academic Term
Fall, Spring, Summer
I prefer to have students start during the above term(s).Volunteer
Yes
Yes indicates that faculty are open to volunteers.Paid
No
Yes indicates that faculty are open to paying students they engage in their research, regardless of their work-study eligibility.Work Study
No
Yes indicates that faculty are open to hiring work-study-eligible students.