Perelman School of Medicine

Most people appreciate that not getting enough sleep impairs cognitive performance. For the chronically sleep-deprived such as shift workers, students, or truckers, a common strategy is simply to catch up on missed slumber on the weekends. According to common wisdom, catch up sleep repays one's "sleep debt," with no lasting effects.

A new study led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has found that the risk of hepatitis C-associated serious liver disease persists in HIV patients otherwise benefitting from antiretroviral therapy (ART) to treat HIV.

Babies are born with the ability to digest lactose, the sugar found in milk, but most humans lose this ability after infancy because of declining levels of the lactose-digesting enzyme lactase.

WHO:             Women of Color at Penn                       University of Pennsylvania

“Cell movement is the basic recipe of life, and all cells have the capacity to move,” says Roberto Dominguez, PhD, professor of Physiology at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.

People who try to quit smoking often say that kicking the habit makes the voice inside telling them to light up even louder, but why people succumb to those cravings so often has never been fully understood.  Now, a new brain imaging study in this week’s JAMA Psychiatry from scientists in Penn Medicine and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Intramural Research Program sh

In 2010, scientists in Italy reported that a woman and her daughter showed a puzzling array of disabilities, including epilepsy and cleft palate. The mother had previously lost a 15-day-old son to respiratory failure, and the research team noted that the mother and daughter were missing a large chunk of DNA on their X chromosome.

Destruction of insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas is at the heart of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. “We are looking for ways to make new beta cells for these patients to one day replace daily insulin injections,” says Ben Stanger, MD, PhD, assistant professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Three longtime allies have joined forces to create the new Penn Medicine/CHOP Friedreich’s Ataxia Center of Excellence. The establishment of the center was catalyzed by a $3.25 million gift from the Friedreich’s Ataxia Research Alliance (FARA), in partnership with the Hamilton and Finneran families.

Even the mildest form of a traumatic brain injury, better known as a concussion, can deal permanent, irreparable damage. Now, an interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania is using mathematical modeling to better understand the mechanisms at play in this kind of injury, with an eye toward protecting the brain from its long-term consequences.