Health Sciences

Two Penn Medicine research teams have received a total of $1,450,000 in funding commitments from CurePSP, the Foundation for PSP | CBD and Related Brain Diseases, to study rare neurodegenerative disorders that cause motor, balance and cognitive impairment.

The consequences of modern life -- shift work, cell phone addiction, and travel across time zones -- all disturb internal clocks. These are found in the brain where they regulate sleep and throughout the body where they regulate physiology and metabolism. Disrupting the clocks is called circadian misalignment, which has been linked to metabolic problems, even in healthy volunteers.

New research by Andrew Stokes, a doctoral student in demography and sociology in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, suggests that many obesity studies substantially underestimate the mortality risks associated with excess weight in the United States. His study, “Using Maximum Weight to Redefine Body Mass Index Categories in Studies of The Mortality Risks of Obesity,” was published in the March issue of the open-access journal Population Health Metrics.

A multi-institutional team led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has found that despite widespread rumors of limited access to primary care services, providers across the country were capable of accepting new patients pr

How will we, as individuals, and a society, live with brains at risk for Alzheimer's disease dementia?

Lyme disease, if not treated promptly with antibiotics, can become a lingering problem for those infected.

A new study in a mutant fruitfly called sleepless (sss) confirmed that the enzyme GABA transaminase, which is the target of some epilepsy drugs, contributes to sleep loss.

With the world watching, mare My Special Girl gave birth to a colt at 9:22 p.m. on Saturday, March 29, at Penn Vet’s New Bolton Center. The grey foal weighed 104 pounds and measured 39.5 inches from crown to tail.

Combatting the tissue degrading enzymes that cause lasting damage following a heart attack is tricky. Each patient responds to a heart attack differently and damage can vary from one part of the heart muscle to another, but existing treatments can’t be fine-tuned to deal with this variation. 

Penn Medicine experts presented research findings that could come to define new standards of cardiovascular care, including findings on the efficacy of novel interventions for treatment resistant hypertension and atherosclerosis, at the 2014 American College of Cardiology Scientific Session, ACC.14.