Perelman School of Medicine

African American person wearing a face mask having their temperature taken via forehead scanner by a masked, gloved medical professional.

Patients in cancer remission at high risk for severe COVID-19 illness

Patients with inactive cancer and not currently undergoing treatments also face a significantly higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19, with Black cancer patients twice as likely to test positive for the virus.

Recovering hospital patient sitting up in hospital bed holding a cup of tea looking out the window.

Outcomes of critically ill COVID patients improved consistently during the pandemic

A Penn Medicine study finds that mortality rates of critically ill patients have progressively declined from the first surge of the pandemic, suggesting that hospital staff rapidly improved their management even before widespread use of evidence-based treatments.

Three medical professionals in full PPE wheel a gurney with a patient towards elevator doors.

Opiate overdoses spike in Black Philadelphians, but drop in white residents since COVID-19

New research into opioid overdoses that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic highlights new disparities along racial lines that are likely fueled by existing inequality.

Person holding a sketchbook over a table with a human anatomy dummy.

When words aren’t enough, medical students go back to the drawing board

A Penn Medicine class helps students hone their visual art skills to help patients understand their medical treatment better via visual aids that bridge communication gaps and outline their care.

Gloved hands putting individual tiny pipettes in a holder in a lab setting.

Mutations commonly linked to breast cancer found to pose no increased risk

Several genetic mutations previously linked to breast cancer and included on commercial genetic tests were found not to increase a woman’s risk of disease, according to a multi-institutional population study of more than 64,000 women.

Medical professional holding an iPad with medical visuals like DNA strings and snapshots of medical imagery floating in background.

New statistical method exponentially increases ability to discover genetic insights

A test of the Sum-Share method found 1,734 genetic variations associated with cardiovascular-related conditions when just one had previously been likely.

Person sitting on bed holding their hands over their injured knee.

New treatment target discovered that halts osteoarthritis-like knee cartilage degeneration

Penn Medicine researchers have used nanotechnology and previous knowledge of a protein pathway to significantly reduce knee cartilage degeneration and pain.

Artistic rendering of a cross section of a kidney.

Too many donor kidneys are discarded in U.S. before transplantation

A new study finds kidneys discarded as low-quality in the U.S are similar to kidneys transplanted with acceptable outcomes in France.

drawing of a large computer “bot” placing a text bubble on a giant smartphone and a human seated beneath the phone placing a text bubble below it on the smartphone.

How researchers scrub Twitter for health data from real humans—not bots

For more than 10 years, Graciela Gonzalez-Hernandez has been studying natural language across social media to inform clinical care, carefully sifting through language to determine which voices qualify as patient experiences.

Two Penn faculty named Hastings Center Fellows

Scott D. Halpern and Jennifer Prah Ruger are acknowledged for their outstanding accomplishments in ethics and health.

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