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A Perturbed Skin Microbiome Can Be ‘Contagious’ and Promote Inflammation, Penn Study Finds

A Perturbed Skin Microbiome Can Be ‘Contagious’ and Promote Inflammation, Penn Study Finds

Even in healthy individuals, the skin plays host to a menagerie of bacteria, fungi and viruses. Growing scientific evidence suggests that this lively community, collectively known as the skin microbiome, serves an important role in healing, allergies, inflammatory responses and protection from infection.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Fossil ‘Winged Serpent’ Is a New Species of Ancient Snake, Penn Doctoral Student Finds

Fossil ‘Winged Serpent’ Is a New Species of Ancient Snake, Penn Doctoral Student Finds

An ancient sink hole in eastern Tennessee holds the clues to an important transitional time in the evolutionary history of snakes. Among the fossilized creatures found there, according to a new paper co-authored by a University of Pennsylvania paleontologist, is a new species of snake that lived 5 million years ago.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Penn Team Characterizes the Underlying Cause of a Form of Macular Degeneration

Penn Team Characterizes the Underlying Cause of a Form of Macular Degeneration

Named for Friedrich Best, who characterized the disease in 1905, Best disease, also known as vitelliform macular dystrophy, affects children and young adults and can cause severe declines in central vision as patients age. The disease is one in a group of conditions known as bestrophinopathies, all linked to mutations in the BEST1 gene.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Look to Lactate to Help Predict Ill Cats’ Prognoses, Penn Vet Study Says

Look to Lactate to Help Predict Ill Cats’ Prognoses, Penn Vet Study Says

Many factors go into evaluating the prognosis of a critically ill animal, usually involving a combination of objective metrics, such as blood pressure or blood oxygenation, and more subjective clinical signs, such as alertness or lethargy.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Penn Vet Library Exhibit Explores the Human-Animal Connection Through Art

Penn Vet Library Exhibit Explores the Human-Animal Connection Through Art

Eleanor Hubbard, an artist and University of Pennsylvania alumna, is a firm believer in the power of serendipity. Without it, her latest exhibition, “Natural Selection: Lost Cat, Found Ox and Other Inspiring Bonds,” would have never come to be.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Penn Vet Team Identifies New Therapeutic Targets for the Tropical Disease Leishmaniasis

Penn Vet Team Identifies New Therapeutic Targets for the Tropical Disease Leishmaniasis

Each year, about 2 million people contract leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease transmitted by the bite of a sand fly. The cutaneous form of the disease results in disfiguring skin ulcers that may take months or years to heal and in rare cases can become metastatic, causing major tissue damage.

Katherine Unger Baillie

T Cells Support Long-lived Antibody-producing Cells, Penn-led Team Finds

T Cells Support Long-lived Antibody-producing Cells, Penn-led Team Finds

If you’ve ever wondered how a vaccine given decades ago can still protect against infection, you have your plasma cells to thank. Plasma cells are long-lived B cells that reside in the bone marrow and churn out antibodies against previously encountered vaccines or pathogens.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Penn Vet Study Shows How Solid Tumors Resist Immunotherapy

Penn Vet Study Shows How Solid Tumors Resist Immunotherapy

Immunotherapies have revolutionized cancer treatment, offering hope to those whose malignancies have stubbornly survived other existing treatments. Yet solid tumor cancers are often resistant to these approaches.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Penn Vet Research Identifies New Target for Taming Ebola

Penn Vet Research Identifies New Target for Taming Ebola

Viruses and their hosts are in a eternal game of one-upmanship. If a host cell evolves a way to stop a virus from spreading, the virus will look for a new path. And so on and so forth.

Katherine Unger Baillie