School of Veterinary Medicine

When treating cancer with chemotherapy and radiation, decisions about dose must walk a fine line between attacking cancerous cells and preserving healthy ones. Overly aggressive radiation therapy to the torso, for example, can damage the epithelial cells that line the intestines, leading to chronic gastrointestinal problems.

John T. Farrar of the Perelman School of Medicine, Elliot V.

University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann and David L. Cohen, chair of Penn’s Board of Trustees, invite Penn students, faculty, staff, alumni, trustees and friends, as well as the region’s business and tech community, to a ribbon-cutting and grand opening ceremony from 12:30 to 4 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 28.

The innate immune system serves as a first-line defense, responding to infections almost immediately after a pathogen makes its way into the body.

Two doctoral students from the University of Pennsylvania were selected by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as inaugural Health Policy Research Scholars. They are Jasmine L. Blanks Jones and Sondra Calhoun. 

To ensure the global population is food secure, it’s estimated that food production must increase at least 50 percent by 2050. One of the best means to achieve that increase is by boosting yield, that is, producing more food on existing cropland with fewer resources.

Ciliopathies are diseases that affect the cilia, sensory organelles that most mammalian cells possess and which play a critical role in many biological functions. One such disease is Senior Løken Syndrome, a rare condition that can involve both a severe kidney disease and the blinding disease Leber congenital amaurosis, or LCA.

Dyskeratosis congenita, or DC, is a rare, inherited disease for which there are limited treatment options and no cure. Typically diagnosed in childhood, the disorder causes stem cells to fail, leading to significant problems including bone marrow failure, lung fibrosis, dyskeratosis of the skin and intestinal atrophy and inflammation.

By Patrick Ammerman You can’t study what you can’t see.

By Patrick Ammerman