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Health Sciences
Penn Medicine: New Study Shows How ICU Ventilation May Trigger Mental Decline
At least 30 percent of patients in intensive care units (ICUs) suffer some form of mental dysfunction as reflected in anxiety, depression, and especially delirium.
Penn Doctor Heads to White House for Affordable Care Act Awareness Event
One of the biggest changes to the health care system is coming in just a few short weeks: the individual mandate.
Penn Medicine: Made to Order at the Synapse: Dynamics of Protein Synthesis at Neuron Tip is Basis for Memory and Learning
Protein synthesis in the extensions of nerve cells, called dendrites, underlies long-term memory formation in the brain, among other functions.
Penn Researchers Use Facebook Data to Predict Users’ Age, Gender and Personality Traits
In the age of social media, people's inner lives are increasingly recorded through the language they use online. With this in mind, an interdisciplinary group of University of Pennsylvania researchers is interested in whether a computational analysis of this language can provide as much, or more, insight into their personalities as traditional methods used by psychologists, such as self-reported surveys and questionnaires.
Penn Medicine: Treating Brain Cancer with Neurosurgical Resection and Chemotherapeutic Wafers Can Improve Cognitive Function
A new approach to treating cancer that has spread to the brain is able to preserve and, in some cases, improve cognitive function in patients, while achieving local control of tumor progression.
Penn Medicine Study: Proton Therapy Cuts Side Effects for Pediatric Head and Neck Cancer Patients
The precise targeting and limited dosing of radiation via proton therapy is proving to be an advantage in ongoing efforts to reduce treatment side effects among head and neck cancer patients, according to a new study of pediatric patients from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Penn Medicine Researchers Harness the Immune System to Fight Pancreatic Cancer
Pancreatic cancer ranks as the fourth-leading cause of cancer death in the United States, and is one of the most deadly forms of cancer, due to its resistance to standard treatments with chemotherapy and radiation therapy and frequently, its late stage at the time of diagnosis.
Penn Study Shows New Islet Cell Transplant Procedure Offers Improved Outcomes for Patients with Type 1 Diabetes
The latest approach to islet transplantation, in which clusters of insulin-producing cells known as islets are transplanted from a donor pancreas into another person’s liver, has produced substantially improved results for patients with type 1 diabetes, and may offer a more durable alternative to a whole pancreas transplant.
Penn Researchers Hornik and Lerman Receive $20 Million in Federal Funding to Establish Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science
A $20 million federal grant will create the University of Pennsylvania Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science (Penn TCORS). A first-of-its-kind regulatory science research enterprise, the new center is designed to conduct studies to inform the regulation of tobacco products to protect public health. The new grant is supported by the U.S.
Penn Researchers Pinpoint Molecular Path that Makes Antidepressants Act Quicker
The reasons behind why it often takes people several weeks to feel the effect of newly prescribed antidepressants remains somewhat of a mystery – and likely, a frustration to both patients and physicians.
In the 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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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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Mayor Parker’s plan to ‘remove the presence of drug users’ from Kensington raises new questions
Shoshana Aronowitz of the School of Nursing and Ashish Thakrar of the Perelman School of Medicine comment on the lack of specificity in Philadelphia’s plan to remove drug users from Kensington and on the current state of drug treatment in the city.
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How many patients would recommend their Philly-area hospital to family and friends? Check your local hospital
The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania has been named one of the most recommended acute-care facilities by patients in the Philadelphia area.
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Homeward bound: When a Penn Medicine nurse was diagnosed with uterine cancer, she turned to the service dogs she helped to train
A profile highlights Maria Wright of Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health, from her volunteer work connecting people with service dogs to her cancer diagnosis and her own journey applying for a service dog.
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