School of Veterinary Medicine

If you were about to enter a crowded subway during flu season, packed with people sneezing and coughing, wouldn’t it be helpful if your immune system recognized the potentially risky situation and bolstered its defenses upon stepping into the train?

“In today’s world, the stereotype of the nerdy scientist, by himself, looking at a microscope, is no longer accurate and no longer useful,” says Gabriel Innes, a third-year student in the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.

A new chemical-genetic therapy restores light responses to the retinas of blind mice and dogs and enables the mice to guide their behavior according to visual cues, setting the stage for clinical trial in humans.

In multiple sclerosis, the immune system goes rogue, improperly attacking the body’s own central nervous system. Mobility problems and cognitive impairments may arise as the nerve cells become damaged.

As scientists probe the molecular underpinnings of why some people are prone to obesity and some to leanness, they are discovering that weight maintenance is more complicated than the old “calories in, calories out” adage.

WHO: James SerpellDirector, Center for the Interaction of Animals and Society, andMarie A. Moore Professor of Ethics & Animal Welfare

Many factors, both genetic and environmental, have been blamed for increasing the risk of a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Some, such as a family history of schizophrenia, are widely accepted. Others, such as infection with Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite transmitted by soil, undercooked meat and cat feces, are still viewed with skepticism.

Almost anyone who has spent time in a hospital is familiar with the routine checks of blood pressure and oxygen levels that serve as signposts of a patient’s overall health. But these measures only reflect the pulsing of blood through the large vessels, arteries and veins, not the smaller arterioles, venules and capillaries, which directly feed tissues and cells.

Every morning this past July, Max Emanuel, a veterinary student at the University of Pennsylvania, would get up and drive to work. But Emanuel’s was no run-of-the-mill morning commute.

As long as humans have been alive, they’ve been seeking ways to extend life just a little longer. So far no one has found the fountain of youth, but researchers have begun to understand how humans age, little by little, offering hope for therapies that may blunt the effects of time on the body.