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In Peru and the U.S., considering the factors that drive public health
Michael Levy

Michael Z. Levy, whose own research uses interdisciplinary methods to shed light on epidemiology and public health, taught the course with colleague César Ugarte-Gil and featured a bevy of guest experts. (Image: Peggy Peterson)

In Peru and the U.S., considering the factors that drive public health

By comparing and contrasting the two nations’ approaches to controlling infectious diseases, students in Parallel Plagues deepened their appreciation of how these diseases emerge, cause harm, and might be effectively controlled.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Access to HIV self-tests in Kenya
People light red candles in the shape of an AIDS awareness ribbon as darkness sets in

World AIDS Day is celebrated around the globe on Dec. 1 each year to raise awareness in the fight against HIV. In this photo from Nov. 30, 2020, Nepalese people light candles around the symbol of an AIDS ribbon during an Eve of the 33rd World AIDS Day celebration in Kathmandu, Nepal. (Image: Narayan Maharjan/NurPhoto via AP Images)

Access to HIV self-tests in Kenya

Marking World AIDS Day, Harsha Thirumurthy of the Perelman School of Medicine offers four takeaways from his research exploring the impact access to free HIV self-tests had on women in Kenya and on the importance of HIV awareness.

Kristen de Groot

A hub for zoonotic disease research
Cryptosporidium A Penn Vet-led team was the first to sequence, study, and manipulate a naturally occurring mouse Cryptosporidium, a parasite responsible for life-threatening illness in people, as well as livestock, pets, and wildlife worldwide. (Image: Muthugapatti Kandasamy, Adam Sateriale, and Boris Striepen)

A hub for zoonotic disease research

The new Institute for Infectious and Zoonotic Diseases, launched by the School of Veterinary Medicine, leans on Penn’s strengths in immunology and infectious disease to prepare for emerging threats to animal and human health.

Katherine Unger Baillie

How HIV infection shrinks the brain’s white matter
Fluorescent microscopic image of a brain cell stained in blue and yellow

How HIV infection shrinks the brain’s white matter

Researchers from Penn and CHOP detail the mechanism by which HIV infection blocks the maturation process of brain cells that produce myelin, a fatty substance that insulates neurons.

Katherine Unger Baillie

A quick pivot turns an infectious disease class into timely education
David Roos taking a selfie while teaching a class online, with scientific materials on the screen behind him

David Roos shifted his infectious disease course online, as required when Penn’s campus closed. But he also adapted its content to tackle some of what is happening in the world around the novel coronavirus. (Image: Courtesy of David Roos)

A quick pivot turns an infectious disease class into timely education

Students in David Roos’ upper-level biology course had been studying pandemics. Now they get to learn in real time how public health scientists attempt to understand COVID-19.

Katherine Unger Baillie

A new way to study HIV’s impact on the brain
colorful rendering of different brain cells in blue, green, and red

By culturing astrocytes, microglia, and neurons—all derived from human-induced pluripotent stem cells—in one dish, researchers have created an effective model to study the cognitive impacts of HIV and other diseases. (Image: Sean Ryan)

A new way to study HIV’s impact on the brain

Using a newly developed laboratory model of three types of brain cells, Penn and CHOP scientists reveal how HIV infection—as well as the drugs that treat it—can take a toll on the central nervous system.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Lifelong no longer: New research on TB infection rarely leads to active disease
x-ray of lungs in purple

Lifelong no longer: New research on TB infection rarely leads to active disease

A Penn-led study suggested majority will not develop disease even if a test shows positive results, citing that the infecting organism, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is likely dead, wiped out naturally by people’s immune systems.

Penn Today Staff

With a second patient free from HIV, what’s next?
stem cell pipette

With a second patient free from HIV, what’s next?

Scientists have succeeded in sending an HIV patient into long-term remission, only the second time such a feat has been documented. Pablo Tebas and Bridgette Brawner discuss what this means for HIV research and for people living with the virus.

Katherine Unger Baillie