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Senior pictures
Student holding magazine

Penn senior and photographer Isabel Zapata created Torch Magazine to feature her portraits of fellow graduating seniors, along with their reflections. 

Senior pictures

Graduating senior and photographer Isabel Zapata captured 57 of her classmates in places of significance to create Torch Magazine. The publication features their reflections as well as her portraits.
A link between mitochondrial damage and osteoporosis
Yellow pointers indicate large cells against a background of other microscopic material. Left panel has two smaller cells indicated while the right panel has three larger cells indicated.

Mitochondrial damage is linked to the bone degradation seen in osteoporosis, according to Penn Vet researchers. Macrophages, a type of immune cell, that had dysfunctional mitochondria (right) were more likely to become osteoclasts—cells that break down bone—than control macrophages (left). (Image: Courtesy of Avadhani Lab)

A link between mitochondrial damage and osteoporosis

In healthy people, a tightly controlled process balances the activity of osteoblasts, which build bone, and osteoclasts, which break it down. Damage to cells’ mitochondria can make that process go awry, meaning exposure to cigarette smoke, alcohol, environmental toxins can increase the risk of osteoporosis.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Putting mussels to the test
A student crouches in front of several aquariums full of water and collects a sample, surrounded by a park setting.

Senior Ahsen Kayani checks on the tanks, set up alongside the BioPond.

Putting mussels to the test

With a mussel hatchery in the future for the Schuylkill River, students in Byron Sherwood’s field biology course used scientific rigor to ask how effectively these filter feeders might render the water clean.

Katherine Unger Baillie

We’re only as good as our microbiomes are happy
Colorful sketch of microorganisms

We’re only as good as our microbiomes are happy

Understanding the microbiome, the collection of bacteria, viruses, and fungi in the gut, is helping to sort out the intricacies of diet, chronobiology, cancer treatment, and more.

Penn Today Staff

Microbiologist named Penn Presidential Professor
Kellie Ann Jurado

Microbiologist named Penn Presidential Professor

Kellie Ann Jurado has been recognized by President Amy Gutmann for her research on the immune system and viral infections. Her current work is on the immune response during a Zika infection.

Penn Today Staff

Certain strains of bacteria associated with diabetic wounds that do not heal
Microscopic view of Staphylococcus aureus.

Staphylococcus aureus bacteria 

Certain strains of bacteria associated with diabetic wounds that do not heal

A new study finds that whether a wound like a diabetic foot ulcer heals or progresses to a worse outcome, including infection or even amputation, may depend on the microbiome within that wound.

Penn Today Staff

Philadelphia: The new city of science
a large group of people in front of the Franklin Institute building with a science demonstration (with smoke and the aftermath of an explosion that caused colored balls to fly into the air) in the foreground

The Philadelphia Science Festival, happening from April 26th until May 4th, brings together hundreds of institutions from the Greater Philadelphia area and culminates in the grand finale Science Carnival along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway (Photo credit: Philadelphia Science Festival). 

Philadelphia: The new city of science

Penn researchers will be involved in a weeklong series of interactive activities and events across the city as part of the Philadelphia Science Festival.

Erica K. Brockmeier

How superstitions spread
A black cat walking on a walkway

Do you change direction when you see a black cat approaching? A game theory-driven model developed by two theoretical biologists at Penn shows how such superstitions can catch on.

How superstitions spread

Superstitious beliefs may seem irrational, but they catch on in a society. Using an evolutionary approach to studying the emergence of coordinated behaviors, Erol Akçay and Bryce Morsky showed how a jumble of individual beliefs, including superstitions, coalesce into an accepted social norm.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Empathy and cooperation go hand in hand
Two figures have heated discussion as a third in the middle observes

Taking the perspective of another can help foster cooperation in a group, according to a new study by Penn evolutionary biologists.

Empathy and cooperation go hand in hand

Taking a game theory approach to study cooperation, School of Arts and Sciences evolutionary biologists find that empathy can help cooperative behavior ‘win out’ over selfishness.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Unlocking the female bias in lupus
Microscopic images of cells are blue with diffuse splotches of pink on each cell.

Unlocking the female bias in lupus

The majority of lupus patients are female, and new findings from Montserrat Anguera of the School of Veterinary Medicine and colleagues shed light on why. The research suggests that female lupus patients don’t fully silence their second X chromosome in T cells, leading to an immune response gone awry.

Katherine Unger Baillie