Katherine Unger Baillie

A new study led by scientists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine has painted a clearer picture of the delicate arms race between the human immune system and a pathogen that seeks to infect and kill human cells. 

The immune system is primed to sense invading pathogens and knock them dead. Yet bacteria have to make a living, too. They’ve evolved to evade the immune system as best as they can.

People fear diseases such as Ebola, Marburg, Lassa fever, rabies and HIV for good reason; they have high mortality rates and few, if any, possible treatments. As many as 90 percent of people who contract Ebola, for instance, die of the disease.

Charles Kane and Scott Poethig of the University of Pennsylvania have been elected members of the National Academy of Sciences, considered one of the highest honors that can be ac

Four researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation's most prestigious honorary societies and a leading center for independent policy research. The new honorees are:

The Luquillo Mountains of Puerto Rico are prone to extremes. Nearly all the rain for the year pours down in two drenching months. Lush, rolling forests give way to rocky, barren peaks. Even the soil is extreme, storing carbon differently than many other soil types, in highly localized iron minerals. 

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has claimed more than 140 lives in recent months. The disease is a frightening one, with fatality rates that can approach 90 percent and no effective vaccine or cure.

A bite from a tick carrying Lyme disease often leaves a telltale bull’s-eye rash.

Though daily cheeseburgers and ice cream sundaes can help pave the way, the road to obesity begins in the brain, where metabolism is regulated by the activity of various hormones and signaling molecules.

Tucked behind old factory buildings on Penn’s South Bank campus stands a gleaming greenhouse. The $2 million structure, completed late last year, is state-of-the-art.