News from

School of Veterinary Medicine

Visit the School's Site
Reset All Filters
487 Results
Tracking the working dogs of 9/11
Veterinarians and handlers with their search-and-rescue dogs

Cynthia Otto (center) cared for search-and-rescue dogs during their work at the 9/11 disaster site, later studying the impact of their service on their health. (Image: Courtesy of Cynthia Otto)

Tracking the working dogs of 9/11

A study of search and rescue dogs led by the School of Veterinary Medicine showed little difference in longevity or cause of death between dogs at the disaster site and dogs in a control group.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Penn Vet expands timely dual degree during COVID-19 pandemic
Jennifer Punt stands with three students in a lab setting discussing a paper.

Jennifer Punt and One Health in Practice students. (Pre-pandemic image: Penn Vet News)

Penn Vet expands timely dual degree during COVID-19 pandemic

The interdisciplinary “One Health in Practice” curriculum positions veterinarians for new career pathways in human, environmental health.

From Penn Vet

Campus workers deliver a ‘team effort’
Man pushes hand cart carrying mail to be sorted with Penn Mail Services trucks in background.

Campus workers deliver a ‘team effort’

As Penn settles into Phase II of research resumption and the fall semester gears up, essential workers keep the campus running. Penn Today spoke with three workers about their “new normal.”

Kristina García

Progress toward a treatment for Krabbe disease
Sequence of 8 MRI images showing treated versus untreated brains from 16 to 52 weeks

Treating dogs with Krabbe disease, a rare and fatal condition that also affects infants, with a gene therapy targeted to the brain led to remarkable results in a study led by a team from the School of Veterinary Medicine. (Image: Courtesy of Charles Vite)

Progress toward a treatment for Krabbe disease

The inherited disease, which typically kills children before their second birthday, has no cure, but a School of Veterinary Medicine study in a canine model offers hope for an effective gene therapy with lasting results.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Poultry in a pandemic: Getting the facts on keeping backyard flocks
hen in a coop with two eggs on hay on the ground

Poultry in a pandemic: Getting the facts on keeping backyard flocks

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Penn Vet’s Sherrill Davison has seen an increase in phone calls from new flock owners looking for general management resources for their birds. Here, she offers health and safety advice for keeping flocks healthy.

From Penn Vet

Getting gene therapy to the brain
Illustration of brain with DNA double helix

Crossing the blood-brain barrier to treat the whole brain has been a challenge for researchers aiming to treat inherited neurodegenerative disease. The results from a study in a large animal model offer “a big advance” in this pursuit, says John Wolfe of Penn Vet, Penn Medicine, and CHOP.

Getting gene therapy to the brain

Using a large animal model of genetic brain disease, researchers led by John H. Wolfe of the School of Veterinary Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia delivered an effective treatment across the blood-brain barrier to correct the whole brain.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Navigating cytokine storms
Illustration of a T cell releasing signaling molecules, IL-4, IL-5, IL-6, IL-10, and IL-13

An immune response can be helpful, harmful, or somewhere in between, in COVID-19 and many other medical conditions. 

  • Q&A

    • Navigating cytokine storms

    Pairing their expertise, Nilam Mangalmurti of the Perelman School of Medicine and Christopher Hunter of the School of Veterinary Medicine have been working to understand the protective and harmful aspects of the immune response, including in COVID-19.

    Katherine Unger Baillie

    Bats and COVID
    close-up image of bat on a tree trunk; three bare trees are in the right background

    Pennsylvania is home to nine bat species including the big brown bat, pictured here. Image: Pennsylvania Game Commission. 

    Bats and COVID

    A new study from Penn Vet's New Bolton Center tests the guano of North American bats currently in Pennsylvania wildlife rehabilitation centers for the presence of COVID-19.

    Kristina García

    Glowing dye may aid in eliminating cancer
    Surgeon uses an imaging machine to assess a tumor

    David Holt of the School of Veterinary Medicine and colleagues have been using an innovative imaging technique to seek out cancer in dogs undergoing surgery. (Image: John Donges)

    Glowing dye may aid in eliminating cancer

    In dogs with mammary tumors, researchers from the School of Veterinary Medicine and Perelman School of Medicine used a substance that glows under near-infrared light to illuminate cancer.

    Katherine Unger Baillie