News Archives

Michael Fitts’s Term as Dean of University of Pennsylvania Law School Is Extended

PHILADELPHIA – University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann and Provost Vincent Price announced today that Michael Fitts has agreed to extend his term as dean of the Penn Law School until June 30, 2015. Fitts became dean in 2000 and had been scheduled to step down on June 30, 2012.  The extension follows consultations with the entire Law School faculty, deans, senior officers of the University, the chairs of the Faculty Senate, Board of Trustees Chair David L. Cohen and Law Board of Overseers Chair Paul Haaga, all of whom praised Fitts’s accomplishments.

Penn celebrates strong ties with Big Brothers Big Sisters

Penn Study Identifies Molecular Guardian of Cell's RNA

When most genes are transcribed, the nascent RNAs they produce are not quite ready to be translated into proteins - they have to be processed first. One of those processes is called splicing, a mechanism by which non-coding gene sequences are removed and the remaining protein-coding sequences are joined together to form a final, mature messenger RNA (mRNA), which contains the recipe for making a protein.

Penn Study Shows School-Based Program Reduces Risky Sexual Behaviors in South African Teens

A school-based, six-session program targeting sexual risk behaviors has proven effective in reducing rates of self-reported unprotected sex and sex with multiple partners among South African sixth-graders, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Discount flu shots for full- and part-time Penn faculty and staff

Got time for a flu shot? It will only take a minute. The Division of Human Resources is partnering with Occupational Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania to provide on-campus flu shots at a discounted rate for full- and part-time Penn faculty and staff.

Get a taste of arts and culture at the Second Annual Penn Arts Crawl

The Penn Arts Crawl, happening Friday, Oct. 22, isn’t just for students. Faculty and staff can attend too, during their lunch hour or after work.

Green Fund welcomes eco-friendly proposals

Is Team Science Productive? Penn Study Measures the Collaborative Nature of Translational Medicine

Taking a cue from the world of business-performance experts and baseball talent scouts, Penn Medicine translational medicine researchers are among the first to find a way to measure the productivity of collaborations in a young, emerging institute. They published their findings the most recent issue of Science Translational Medicine.

Penn Study Gives Hope for New Class of Alzheimer’s Disease Drugs

Finding a drug that can cross the blood-brain barrier is the bane of drug development for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological disorders of the brain. A new Penn study, published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience, has found and tested in an animal model of Alzheimer’s disease a class of drug that is able to enter the brain, where it stabilizes degenerating neurons and improves memory and learning.

Penn Graduate Student Identifies New Species of Plant-Eating Dinosaur: Kukufeldia Tigatensis

PHILADELPHIA –- A fossil found more than 150 years ago has now been identified as the remains of a new species of dinosaur, the herbivore Kukufeldia tigatensis.  The study was led by University of Pennsylvania graduate student Andrew McDonald and paleontologists from the Natural History Museum, London.