Organization for 'promoting useful knowledge' honors Dr. Jordan Orange
A pediatric immunologist at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has received a prestigious annual award from the American Philosophical Society, an organization founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin. Jordan S. Orange, M.D., Ph.D., received the Society's Judson Daland Prize on Nov. 13 for his contributions to research and treatment of inherited immune deficiency diseases.
The Judson Daland Prize for Clinical Investigation recognizes outstanding achievements in patient-oriented research. Honorees are nominated by chairs of clinical departments at a U.S. medical school or hospital and selected by a distinguished committee of biomedical researchers.
Dr. Orange's work involves the innate immune system, the body's first defense against life-threatening infections and diseases. His particular research focus is natural killer cells, a major component of the innate immune system, which have an inherent ability to destroy cancer or virus-infected cells. While in graduate school at Brown University, he discovered that natural killer cells produce cytokines, which are secreted immune signaling molecules, to participate in defending the body against viruses.
Dr. Orange has continued his research in natural killer cells as a pediatrician, defining the field of human diseases caused by inherent deficiencies of natural killer cells. These include diseases in which only natural killer cells are defective, or where they are defective along with other components of immunity.
One example is Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome, a difficult to treat, life-threatening, immune-deficiency disease. Dr. Orange discovered a natural killer cell defect and its mechanism in these patients, which make them especially vulnerable to herpesvirus infections and blood cell cancers. He used this knowledge to develop a novel therapy that bypasses the cellular defect, and has begun a unique clinical trial of the treatment at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.