Health Sciences

PHILADELPHIA - Many types of tumors grow because of over-expression or a mutation of a protein called the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), normally regulated by a hormone-like peptide called the epidermal growth factor (EGF).

  WHAT:            The 2010-11 Penn Reading Project at the University of Pennsylvania will examine the book “The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters” by Penn alumna Rose George.  

PHILADELPHIA -- J. Larry Jameson, M.D., Ph.D., has been named the next executive vice president of the University of Pennsylvania for the Health System and dean of Penn’s School of Medicine, effective July 1, 2011.

The federal Health and Human Services Administration has announced that Penn professor Julie Sochalski, a well-known expert in the field on healthcare workforce issues and who has directed multiple federal research efforts, has been appointed the Director for the Division of Nursing in th

Women who have inherited mutations in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 (BRCA1/2) genes have substantially elevated risks of developing breast and ovarian cancer.  A study that will appear in the September 1 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reports that women with these inherited mutations who have had a prophylactic mastectomy or salpingo-oophorectomy (removal of

PHILADELPHIA –   Patients with asthma who are exposed to violence in their community are at an increased risk for an asthma-related hospitalization and emergency room visits for asthma or any cause, according to new research from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

PHILADELPHIA –- A study comparing a University of Pennsylvania method for evaluating a dog’s susceptibility to hip dysplasia to the traditional American method has shown that 80 percent of dogs judged to be normal by the traditional method are actually at risk for developing osteoarthritis and hip dysplasia, according to the Penn method.

Male infertility is a common medical problem, affecting millions of men in the United States annually. Its causes include an inability to make productive sperm.

Despite the fact that an estimated 25 million patients per year in the U.S. undergo surgeries using general anesthesia, scientists have only been able to hypothesize exactly how anesthetics interact with the central nervous system. They previously thought that the processes of “going under” and waking up from anesthesia affected the brain in the same way.

By comparing two species of ants, Shelley Berger, PhD, the Daniel S.