Patients who are undergoing treatment for diseases such as cancer often face the added challenge of a compromised immune system, which can be a toll both of their condition and the drugs used to treat it, leaving them vulnerable to various opportunistic infections.

A nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) changed the composition and diversity of gut microbes, which in turn shaped how the drug is broken down and ultimately, cut its effectiveness, according to an animal study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

In Florida carpenter ant colonies, distinct worker castes called minors and majors exhibit pronounced differences in social behavior throughout their lives. In a new study published today in Science, a multi-institution team anchored at University of Pennsylvania found that these caste-specific behaviors are not set in stone.

Physicians and others now recognize that seemingly mild, concussion-type head injuries lead to long-term cognitive impairments surprisingly often.

When peripheral nerves are damaged and their vital synaptic paths are disrupted, they have the ability to regenerate and reestablish lost connections. But what about when a nerve is severed completely, its original route lost?

Three professors from the University of Pennsylvania have been elected members to the National Academy of Medicine, one of the nation's highest honors in biomedicine. NAM was originally the Institute of Medicine, which was established in 1970 under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences to advise the nation on medical and health issues.

Different treatments for Crohn's disease in children affects their gut microbes in distinct ways, which has implications for future development of microbial-targeted therapies for these patients, according to a study led by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Growing insights about a significant, yet poorly understood, part of the genome – the “dark matter of DNA” -- have fundamentally changed the way scientists approach the study of diseases. The human genome contains about 20,000 protein-coding genes – less than 2 percent of the total – but 70 percent of the genome is made into non-coding RNA.

A surprising, paradoxical relationship between a tumor suppressor molecule and an oncogene may be the key to explaining and working around how breast cancer tumor cells become desensitized to a common cancer drug, found researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Myc is a cancer-causing gene responsible for disrupting the normal 24-hour internal rhythm and metabolic pathways in cancer cells, found a team led by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Postdoctoral fellow Brian Altman, PhD, and doctoral student Annie Hsieh, MD, both from the lab of senior author Chi Van Dang, MD, PhD, director of the Abramson Cancer Center, study body clock proteins associated with cancer cells.