Health Sciences

Penn Study: Overly Conservative FDA Label Likely Prevents Use of Metformin in Many Type 2 Diabetics

Many patients with type 2 diabetes in the United States may be discouraged from taking metformin—a proven, oral diabetes medicine—because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration inappropriately labels the drug unsafe for some patients also suffering from kidney problems, researchers from Penn Medicine and Weill Cornel Medical College report this week in a research letter published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Steve Graff

Penn Scientists Identify Patterns of RNA Regulation in the Nuclei of Plants

When the human genome was first sequenced, experts predicted they would find about 100,000 genes. The actual number has turned out to be closer to 20,000, just a few thousand more than fruit flies have. The question logically arose: how can a relatively small number of genes lay the blueprint for the complexities of the human body?

Katherine Unger Baillie

Penn and UGA Awarded $23.4 Million Contract for Pathogen Genomics Database

At the turn of the millennium, the cost to sequence a single human genome exceeded $50 million, and the process took a decade to complete. Microbes have genomes, too, and the first reference genome for a malaria parasite was completed in 2002 at a cost of roughly $15 million. But today researchers can sequence a genome in a single afternoon for just a few thousand dollars.

Katherine Unger Baillie



In the News


KFF Health News

Rural jails turn to community health workers to help the newly released succeed

According to Aditi Vasan of the Leonard Davis Institute and Perelman School of Medicine, evidence is mounting in favor of the model of training community health workers to help their neighbors connect to government and health care services.

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The New York Times

When it’s time for an aging driver to hit the brakes

Lauren Massimo of the School of Nursing says that losing the ability to drive is a major and dehumanizing loss for older adults.

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Everyday Health

What is food noise and how do you get rid of it?

According to Thomas Wadden of the Perelman School of Medicine, people taking GLP-1 drugs are finding that daily experiences that used to trigger a compulsion to eat or think about food no longer have that effect.

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Philadelphia Gay News

UPenn hosts free online panel for LGBTQ+ workplace inclusion

The Eidos LGBTQ+ Health Initiative, led by José Bauermeister and Jessica Halem of the School of Nursing, will host a free online panel in April on the integration of LGBTQ+ people in the workforce.

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The New Yorker

How to die in good health

PIK Professor Ezekiel Emanuel says that incessantly preparing for old age mistakes a long life for a worthwhile one.

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