News from

Health Sciences

Reset All Filters
2005 Results
Making headway against a killer virus
ebola virus through the microscope

Making headway against a killer virus

Around Penn, clinicians and researchers are focused on Ebola, working to ensure this disease—fearsomely lethal—can be vanquished.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Using stairwells for wellness
Blue stripe with Determination written on it in stairwell

“Determination” is one of many motivational phrases used to encourage people to take the stairwell as part of the StairWELL UPenn campaign. (Photo: Danielle Cavalcanto)

Using stairwells for wellness

StairWELL, a Penn Sustainability Green Fund project, completed a yearlong pilot project last July that aimed to test how effective a stairwell makeover could be in increasing physical activity and reducing energy costs.
Eleventh state enacts law to protect victims of child sex abuse
Woman in a red jacket standing at a podium with two microphones.

Marci Hamilton, the Robert A. Fox Leadership Program professor of practice, speaking on behalf of the Child Victims Act. (Photo: Courtesy of Marci Hamilton)

Eleventh state enacts law to protect victims of child sex abuse

Marci Hamilton, a professor of practice and founder and CEO of the nonprofit think tank CHILD USA, helped draft the original New York legislation more than 15 years ago and has been working ever since to push it through.

Michele W. Berger

A shared past for East Africa’s hunter-gatherers
A few people stand in front of a building talking to a larger group of gathered people listening.

With the help of a local translator, Simon Thompson (in blue plaid shirt) from Sarah Tishkoff’s lab and Dawit Wolde-Meskel (in yellow shirt), a collaborator from Addis Ababa University, explain the research project on African population genetics to the Argobba population, Ethiopia. After the project is presented, the researchers answer any questions. (Credit: Tishkoff lab)

A shared past for East Africa’s hunter-gatherers

PIK Professor Sarah Tishkoff, Laura Scheinfeldt, and Sameer Soi use data from 50 populations to study African genetic diversity. Their analysis suggests that geographically far-flung hunter-gatherer groups share a common ancestry.

Katherine Unger Baillie

To get smokers to quit, tap into their biology
Andrew Strasser in tobacco lab conducting research

To get smokers to quit, tap into their biology

How quickly nicotine clears the bloodstream determines which treatment will work best, a tool scientists at Penn Medicine are using to advance the field of tobacco research.

Michele W. Berger

The diversity of rural African populations extends to their microbiomes
A group of people, some holding sacks, next to a small rustic house and under trees

Hadza people gather to receive a government-provided food supply of beans and maize. (Photo: Alessia Ranciaro/Tishkoff Lab)

The diversity of rural African populations extends to their microbiomes

In the largest study of its kind, researchers led by PIK Professor Sarah Tishkoff, Matthew Hansen, and Meagan Rubel investigated the gut microbiomes of people from Botswana and Tanzania, and illuminate the impact of lifestyle, geography, and genetics in shaping the microbiome.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Going out of the box to learn to treat exotic creatures
Penn Vet students examining a turtle

Fourth-year veterinary student Sarah Gronsky gets a close-up view of Cordelia, a Russian tortoise, at the School of Veterinary Medicine’s Ryan Hospital. To stand out in a competitive field, students hoping to pursue exotics veterinary medicine often squeeze extra research and training into their schedules.

Going out of the box to learn to treat exotic creatures

Veterinary students interested in wildlife, zoo, and exotics medicine get creative—and driven—to get the training opportunities they need to advance.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Podcast series charts a path for Latin Americans in science
With a microphone between them, Enrique Lin-Shiao and Kevin Alicea-Torres sit for an interview with one of the subjects of their podcast.

Co-founders of the "Caminos en Ciencia" podcast, biomedicine doctoral students Enrique Lin-Shiao and Kevin Alicea-Torres craft their program to highlight the career tracks and accomplishments of Latinx scientists. (Photo: Courtesy of Lin-Shiao and Alicea-Torres)

Podcast series charts a path for Latin Americans in science

Concerned about the scarcity of Latin Americans in scientific careers, doctoral students Kevin Alicea-Torres and Enrique Lin-Shiao took action to prime the pump. On their Spanish-language podcast, “Caminos en Ciencia,” they chat with Latinx scientists who discuss their career paths and provide advice for young scientists-to-be.

Katherine Unger Baillie

PCI event recognizes faculty trailblazers
business woman making connections on a screen while holding an ipad

PCI event recognizes faculty trailblazers

A Penn Center for Innovation event on Wednesday will celebrate this year’s 100-plus patent awardees and honor individuals with the most impressive startups, inventions, devices, and deals.

Lauren Hertzler

Two from Penn named to new class of AAAS Fellows
Michel Koo and Joshua Plotkin

Hyun (Michel) Koo and Joshua Plotkin

Two from Penn named to new class of AAAS Fellows

Noted for their contributions to dental and biological sciences, respectively, Hyun (Michel) Koo of the School of Dental Medicine and Joshua Plotkin of the School of Arts and Sciences are part of the newest cohort of fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Katherine Unger Baillie