Perelman School of Medicine

Niacin, or vitamin B3, is the one approved drug that elevates "good" cholesterol (high density lipoprotein, HDL) while depressing "bad" cholesterol (low density lipoprotein , LDL), and has thereby attracted much attention from patients and physicians. Niacin keeps fat from breaking down, and so obstructs the availability of LDL building blocks.

Researchers have long recognized that autism runs in families, suggesting a genetic component. Yet, few genes have so far been identified and the underlying genetic nature of autism — how many genes contribute and to what extent they influence a person's chances of developing the disorder — remains poorly understood.

The 24-hour internal clock controls many aspects of human behavior and physiology, including sleep, blood pressure, and metabolism. Disruption in circadian rhythms leads to increased incidence of many diseases, including metabolic disease and cancer. Each cell of the body has its own internal timing mechanism, which is controlled by proteins that keep one another in check.

PHILADELPHIA — The University of Pennsylvania’s Jonathan Moreno has been invited to join the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s

A Penn- and MIT-led team explained how rapamycin, a drug that extends mouse lifespan, also causes insulin resistance. The researchers showed in an animal model that they could, in principle, separate the effects, which depend on inhibiting two protein complexes, mTORC1 and mTORC2, respectively.

Patients with end-stage liver disease complicated by the most common type of liver cancer — hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) — are less likely to die or become too sick for a transplant while waiting for a new liver than those with other complications of end-stage liver disease, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the Univ

Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine, the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, have received a $2 million grant from the National

A highly detailed CT scan of the heart can safely and quickly rule out the possibility of a heart attack among many patients who come to hospital emergency rooms with chest pain, according to the results of a study that will be presented by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania today at the Am

When poet Walt Whitman wrote that we "contain multitudes," he was speaking metaphorically, but he was correct in the literal sense. Every human being carries over 100 trillion individual bacterial cells within the intestine -- ten times more cells than comprise the body itself.

PHILADELPHIA — Benjamin Garcia has been named the first Presidential Term Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, effective June 1.  The announcement was made by Penn President Amy Gutmann and Provost Vincent Price.