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Health Sciences
Physical rehab helps ‘rock star’ Ranger walk again
After successful surgery to relieve spinal compression, four-year-old Australian cattle dog Ranger faced just a 50 percent chance of ever regaining use of his back legs. Penn Vet's rehab team aimed to get the pup back on his feet.
Breaking through the medical fake news bubble
In a new perspective piece published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Raina Merchant and David A. Asch provide some guidance for medical professionals and scientists as they wade into online discussions.
A Sayre-Keystone collaboration brings dental care to kids
Penn Dental at Sayre Health Center teamed with Keystone First to help children and young adults living in the Center’s West Philadelphia neighborhood find dental care.
Kids embrace their inner frog for wellness
Kids Yoga is Penn Medicine Princeton Health’s newest kid-friendly, kid-focused active living program.
Bigger brains are smarter, but not by much
Using a large dataset and controlling for a variety of factors, including sex, age, height, socioeconomic status, and genetic ancestry, Gideon Nave of the Wharton School and Philipp Koellinger of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam found that people with larger brains rated higher on measures of intelligence, but only accounts for two percent of the variation in smarts.
Why we have hair here, but not there
A new study answers a fundamental question in human evolution about how and where hair grows on the body, and reveals the existence of a naturally-occurring inhibitor to hair growth.
Workplace pumping made easier
Listening to employee feedback, Penn Medicine added hospital-grade pumps and doubled its lactation spaces, taking strides to help women meet their breastfeeding goals.
World AIDS Day: What’s happening with the epidemic today
Professor of Medicine and Associate Chief of the Infectious Diseases Division Ian Frank explains progress made and challenges still faced in the world of HIV/AIDS research, prevention, and treatment.
Treating spinal pain with ‘engineered living tissue’ moves closer to reality
A multidisciplinary team at Penn successfully demonstrated the feasibility of an innovative new disc replacement made of living material.
FDA approves new targeted drug for leukemia
The drug is the first to target common mutations associated with relapse and short survival in acute myeloid leukemia.
In the News
KYW Newsradio (Philadelphia)
Justin Morrison: Penn’s impact player on the field and in the lab
Senior Justin Morrison of Swedesboro, N.J., spent last summer working with Penn Presbyterian Medical Center on a study about traumatic brain injuries. “It was really cool working with Dr. Sangobowale knowing that he was a … Penn alumni who was on the field doing the same things I was,” said Morrison.
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Science
What now for human genome editing?
The Perelman School of Medicine’s James Wilson discussed possible venues for the scientific oversight of controversial research. The FDA could be a good option, he suggested, but the organization would have to change its confidentiality restrictions to supervise effectively.
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Reader’s Digest
The 10 most common types of cancer in the United States
Thomas Karasic of the Perelman School of Medicine weighed in on treatments for liver and pancreatic cancers.
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Today
Died of a broken heart? The science behind close couple deaths
David Casarett of the Perelman School of Medicine spoke about the phenomenon of spouses dying shortly after one another. Casarett said social and cultural factors may play a role, as in cases when “the surviving spouses stop taking care of themselves. Sometimes they become depressed.”
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Smithsonian Magazine
What’s new, and what’s not, in the reported birth of the CRISPR babies
The Perelman School of Medicine’s Kiran Musunuru said that the birth of gene-edited babies does not constitute a scientific advancement because “there was nothing preventing previous researchers who edited human embryos from doing the same, except their own ethics and morals.”
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