News from

Biology

Reset All Filters
371 Results
Illuminating interactions between decision-making and the environment
People in fishing boats on the water

Aunifying game theory model describing the feedbacks that occur between strategic decision making and environmental change captured dynamics that occur in fisheries, in human social interactions, in soil-microbe interactions, and much more. (Image: Erol Akçay) 

Illuminating interactions between decision-making and the environment

With a unifying model based in game theory, Andrew Tilman, Joshua Plotkin, and Erol Akçay of the School of Arts and Sciences inform dynamics in fields as diverse as ecology and economics.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Fruit fly love songs
Two fruit flies on surface decorated with small hearts

Fruit fly love songs

Yun Ding, assistant professor of biology, studies the courtship behavior of fruit flies to learn how genes and brains evolve to change animal behaviors.

Answers to microbiome mysteries in the gills of rainbow trout
Dozens of rainbow trout swimming

Rainbow trout are the model organism of choice for immunologist Oriol Sunyer of the School of Veterinary Medicine. In a new report, Sunyer and colleagues shed light on the dual roles of a type of antibody in trout—to both defend against pathogens and sustain a healthy microbiome.

nocred

Answers to microbiome mysteries in the gills of rainbow trout

In trout, the School of Veterinary Medicine’s J. Oriol Sunyer and colleagues discovered that a particular type of primitive antibody is essential for fighting microbes that cause disease while preserving others that make up a healthy microbiome.

Katherine Unger Baillie

With a protein ‘delivery,’ parasite can suppress its host’s immune response
Fluorescent microscopic image shows Toxoplasma parasite infecting immune cells

The Toxoplasma parasite (in red) doesn’t need to infect an immune cell to alter its behavior, according to new Penn Vet research. Simply being injected with a package of proteins by the parasite (indicated by cells turning green) is enough to change the host cells’ activity. (Video: Courtesy of Hunter laboratory)

With a protein ‘delivery,’ parasite can suppress its host’s immune response

The parasite Toxoplasma gondii need not infect a host immune cell to alter its behavior, according to a new study from the School of Veterinary Medicine.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Meet the biology major who brought an Iowa caucus to Philadelphia
A group of people talking and laughing in a cluster, with a video camera being held in the top left corner.

Junior Jessica Anderson (center) of Titonka, Iowa, organized an Iowa satellite caucus in Philadelphia, one of more than 90 that took place worldwide. Fourteen people, mostly area college students, participated. 

Meet the biology major who brought an Iowa caucus to Philadelphia

Junior Jessica Anderson organized the satellite event because she wanted to participate in the political process. Politics aside, she’s aiming for a career that combines research and patient care.

Michele W. Berger

How biology creates networks that are cheap, robust, and efficient
a close up image of a leaf with the main vessels and branches visible

How biology creates networks that are cheap, robust, and efficient

Physicists describe how vascular networks, collections of vessels that move fluid, nutrients, and waste, balance robustness with “cost” to create a diverse array of structures and designs.

Erica K. Brockmeier

Coral reef resilience
Marine biologist Katie Barott with tanks containing corals in her lab at Penn

Marine biologist Katie Barott investigates the strategies  certain corals may use to tolerate the warmer temperatures and acidic waters that climate change is bringing to the world’s oceans.

Coral reef resilience

With coral reefs under threat from climate change, marine biologist Katie Barott studies how some corals may prove resilient to warming temperatures and acidifying oceans.

Katherine Unger Baillie

A new role for a triple-negative breast cancer target
microscope images of a mammary gland duct

A new role for a triple-negative breast cancer target

A team led by Rumela Chakrabarti of the School of Veterinary Medicine has made new discoveries into how a key protein involved in triple-negative breast cancer functions in puberty.

Katherine Unger Baillie

The view from inside the ‘medical scandal’ of China’s gene-edited babies
A scientist in a white coat with blue rubber gloves on holding a petri dish. In the background are lab materials on several sets of shelves.

Kiran Musunuru is an associate professor of cardiovascular medicine and genetics in the Perelman School of Medicine. His work is focused on cardiovascular genetics, in trying to find ways to prevent heart attack using genetics as a tool. (Image: Peggy Peterson)

  • Q&A

    • The view from inside the ‘medical scandal’ of China’s gene-edited babies

    In a Q&A, geneticist Kiran Musunuru describes his unintentional connection to the scientist behind the scandal and the book that came out of the experience.

    Michele W. Berger