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Widening the lens on language study
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Widening the lens on language study

Penn Arts and Sciences faculty use language to unravel mysteries of culture, cognition, and communication.

How plants cope with stress
an irrigation field with minimal crops growing

Irrigated crops can grow with less water but are typically subject to increased salts leached out of the surrounding soil, which can put a dent in productivity. A new study led by Penn biologists has uncovered a way plants respond to salt stress—a pathway that could be manipulated to engineer more tolerant crops.

How plants cope with stress

With climate change comes drought, and with drought comes higher salt concentrations in the soil. Brian Gregory and graduate student Stephen Anderson have identified a mechanism by which plants respond to salt stress, a pathway that could be targeted to engineer more adaptable crops.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Future fertility: Giving hope to men who received childhood cancer treatment
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Future fertility: Giving hope to men who received childhood cancer treatment

Researchers have discovered a way to grow human stem cells destined to become mature sperm in an effort to provide fertility options later in life to males who are diagnosed with cancer and undergo chemotherapy and radiation as children.

Penn Today Staff

New scholars named to promote research into the influence of gender on health
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New scholars named to promote research into the influence of gender on health

Melanie Kornides of the School of Nursing, Jennifer Lewey of the Perelman School of Medicine, and C. Alix Timko of Medicine and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia are pursuing research that examines the role of sex and gender on health, supported by the Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health program.

Katherine Unger Baillie

To improve dunes, plant more beach grass
beach grass

Volunteers can protect dunes by planting grasses like the American beachgrass, and it's easy if they can remember "D-P-F-N: Dig, Plant, Firm, Name."

To improve dunes, plant more beach grass

Pairing biology and cinema studies, Bianca Charbonneau and Yoni Gottlieb have produced a light-hearted, informative video that teaches the proper method for planting dune grasses to build a healthier dune ecosystem.

Jacob Williamson-Rea

Immune cells involved in triple-negative breast cancer could offer future therapeutic target
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Immune cells involved in triple-negative breast cancer could offer future therapeutic target

New research led by Rumela Chakrabarti reveals how immune cells called myeloid-derived immunosuppressor cells contribute to the progression of triple-negative breast cancer, a particularly aggressive cancer. Pairing chemotherapy with a drug that blocks these cells may one day help stem its growth.

Katherine Unger Baillie

A study in prenatal gene editing with DNA in utero
dna

A study in prenatal gene editing with DNA in utero

A Penn Medicine and CHOP team shows the first example of using base-editing tools to treat a disease in animal models in utero.

Penn Today Staff

Making fossils move to build better robots
Making extinct dinosaurs move to build better robots

Making fossils move to build better robots

Aja Carter, a Ph.D. candidate in paleontology, builds robots based on fossilized animals that crawled out of the sea about 300 million years ago. She’s pioneering a new field that she calls paleo-bio-inspired robotics.

Jacob Williamson-Rea

Seven Penn researchers receive NIH Director Awards
Payne, Aimee and Mason, Nicola

Aimee Payne (left) of Penn Medicine and Nicola Mason of Penn Vet are co-investigators on an NIH Director's Transformative Research Award that will support investigations into the use of immunotherapies to treat an autoimmune disease in pet dogs. Payne and Mason are among seven Penn researchers to win highly competitive NIH Director's awards this year.

Seven Penn researchers receive NIH Director Awards

Seven researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine, School of Veterinary Medicine, and School of Engineering and Applied Science are to receive National Institutes of Health Director Awards, highly competitive grants to support innovative biomedical research.

Penn Today Staff