Bennett H. Penn, M.D., Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Infectious Diseases
Internal Medicine
GBSF 5319
Davis Campus
530-752-9380
e-mail

Dr. Penn is an infectious diseases specialist caring for adult patients with a wide range of complex infections. He has particular expertise and research interest in mycobacterial diseases such as Tuberculosis.

Lab Page: https://pennlab.faculty.ucdavis.edu/

Dr. Penn's research focuses on understanding the immune response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacteria that causes the human disease tuberculosis using cutting-edge genetic and proteomic tools.

Lab Page: https://pennlab.faculty.ucdavis.edu/

Penn BH, Netter Z, Johnson, J. Ohol Y, Maher C., Bell S, Von Dollen J, Geiger K, Du X, Choi A, Parry T, Naramura M, Jang G, Johnson T, Chen C, Jaeger S, Shales M, Portnoy D, Hernandez R, Coscoy L, Krogan NJ and Cox JS. "A Mtb-Human Protein-Protein Interaction Map Reveals a Role for the Ubiquitin Ligase CBL in Regulating the Balance Between Host Anti-Viral and Anti-Bacterial Responses". Preprint: bioRxiv doi.org/10.1101/202598.

Penn BH and Cox JS. "Immunology: Organelle stress triggers inflammation". Nature. 2016 April;21:532, 321–322.

Mirrashidi, K, Engel, J, Verschueren, E, Johnson, JR, Frando, A, Von Dollen, J, Rosenberg,R, Gulbahce, N, Jang, G, Johnson, J, Jager, S, Gopalakrishnan, A, Dunn, JD, Olive, A, Penn, B, Shales, M, Starnbach, M, Derre, I, Valdivia, R, Krogan, N, Engel, J. "Global analysis of Chlamydia Inc-host protein interactome reveals that retromer functions as a host restriction factor". Cell Host & Microbe. 2015 July; 8(18):109–121.

Ercegovac UC, Metcalfe TL, Penn BH, Smith KM, Elmore JG. "Traveling as a risk factor for venous thromboembolic disease". Respir Care. 2006 Oct;51(10):1177–80.

Cao Y, Kumar RM, Penn BH, Berkes CA, Kooperberg C, Boyer LA, Young RA, and Tapscott SJ. "Global and gene-specific analyses show distinct roles for Myod and Myog at a common set of promoters". EMBO J.2006 Feb 8;25(3):502–11.

Penn BH, Bergstrom DA, Dilworth FJ, Bengal E, Tapscott SJ. "A MyoD-generated feed-forward circuit temporally patterns gene expression during skeletal muscle differentiation". Genes Dev. Cold Spring Harbor Lab. 2004 Oct 1;18(19):2348–53.

Berkes CA, Bergstrom DA, Penn BH, Seaver KJ, Knoepfler PS, Tapscott SJ. "Pbx marks genes for activation by MyoD indicating a role for a homeodomain protein in establishing myogenic potential". Mol Cell. 2004 May 21;14(4):465–77.

Penn BH*, Bergstrom DA*, Strand A, Perry RLS, Rudnicki MA, Tapscott SJ. "Promoter-specific regulation of MyoD binding and signal transduction cooperate to pattern gene expression". Mol Cell. 2002 Mar;9(3):587–600. *These authors contributed equally to this work

Filippova GN, Thienes CP, Penn BH, Cho DH, Hu YJ, Moore JM, et al. "CTCF-binding sites flank CTG/CAG repeats and form a methylation-sensitive insulator at the DM1 locus". Nat Genet. Nature Publishing Group.2001 Aug;28(4):335–43.

Penn BH, Berkes CA, Bergstrom DA, Tapscott SJ. "How to MEK muscle. Mol Cell. 2001 Aug;8(2).

Waskiewicz AJ, Johnson JC, Penn BH, Mahalingam M, Kimball SR, Cooper JA. "Phosphorylation of the cap-binding protein eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E by protein kinase Mnk1 in vivo". Mol. Cell. Biol. 1999;19:1871–1880.

  • Chief Fellow, infectious diseases fellowship, University of California San Francisco, 2010
  • Clinical Excellence Award, top internal medicine resident clinician, Stanford Hospital, 2009