News from

Biology

Reset All Filters
370 Results
Two Penn faculty named 2020 AAAS Fellows
Close-up headshots of two people. The person on the left wears a suit and tie, the one on the right wears a plaid button-down shirt.

Qi Long (left), a professor of biostatistics in Biostatistics and Epidemiology, and E. Michael Ostap, a professor of physiology, both of the Perelman School of Medicine, have been named 2020 American Association for the Advancement of Science fellows. (Images: Courtesy of Penn Medicine)

Two Penn faculty named 2020 AAAS Fellows

Qi Long and E. Michael Ostap of the Perelman School of Medicine are among a cohort of 489 distinguished scientists recognized with the honor from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Melissa Moody , Michele W. Berger

Customized kits turn students’ dining rooms into biology labs
Person in mask takes a sample of pond water

Customized kits turn students’ dining rooms into biology labs

Students in introductory biology laboratory courses in the School of Arts & Sciences used customized laboratory kits to get hands-on practice with the scientific method.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Donita Brady is ready for the next steps in cancer biology research
Donita Brady in her office.

Presidential Professor of cancer biology Donita Brady. (Image: Penn Medicine News)

Donita Brady is ready for the next steps in cancer biology research

The Presidential Professor of cancer biology leads a team that is working to understand how cancer grows uncontrolled in cells and discovering novel ways to stop it. 

Melissa Moody

Two key events that turn normal cells into cancer
Microscopic view of cells of a living organism.

The findings may inform the development of new therapies that could treat any tumor type.

Two key events that turn normal cells into cancer

The discovery of a unifying mechanism could inform new therapeutic approaches to prevent normal cells from transforming into any type of tumor.

Melissa Moody

The role of data in a world reshaped by COVID-19
people six feet apart in a park

The role of data in a world reshaped by COVID-19

Experts across Penn share their insights on how data and data science affect their fields in the context of an ongoing pandemic.

Katherine Unger Baillie , Michele W. Berger , Erica K. Brockmeier

Away from the lab bench, Khoa Tran is a ‘science superhero’
Three-panel comic strip called E. Coli Chronicles, A Magical Friendship

Away from the lab bench, Khoa Tran is a ‘science superhero’

The research fellow in the Berger Lab and co-founder of JKX Comics makes science and STEM disciplines more accessible by translating abstruse concepts into approachable comics.

The Pennsylvania Gazette

Declines in shellfish species on rocky seashores match climate-driven changes
snails and barnacles on a rock on the seashore

Dogwhelks feed on barnacles on the shores of Swan’s Island. New research documents slow and steady declines in these and other intertidal species that make up an important part of the area’s food chain. Climate change is a suspected culprit. (Image: Jonathan A. D. Fisher)

Declines in shellfish species on rocky seashores match climate-driven changes

Mussels, barnacles, and snails are declining in the Gulf of Maine, according to a new paper by biologists Peter Petraitis of the School of Arts & Sciences and Steve Dudgeon of California State University, Northridge. Their 20-year dataset reveals that the populations’ steady dwindling matches up with the effects of climate change on the region.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Dueling proteins give shape to plants
Green and red close up images of plants

(Image: Wagner laboratory)

Dueling proteins give shape to plants

Research led by Doris Wager of the School of Arts & Sciences, together with postdoc Yang Zhu and graduate student Samantha Klasfeld, reveals an antagonistic relationship behind flower development.

Katherine Unger Baillie , Katherine Unger Baillie