Health Sciences

As Hurricane Maria formed in the Atlantic, then turned into a powerful storm barreling toward Puerto Rico, Arjun Yodh watched the news closely.

Infections caused by viruses, such as respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, measles, parainfluenza and Ebola, are typically considered acute. These viruses cause disease quickly and live within a host for a limited time. But in some cases the effects of the infection, and presence of the virus itself, can persist.

The immune system is constantly performing surveillance to detect foreign organisms that might do harm. But pathogens, for their part, have evolved a number of strategies to evade this detection, such as secreting proteins that hinder a host’s ability to mount an immune response.

By Ian McCurry

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and other international universities are working to save an invaluable scientific resource badly damaged during Hurricane Maria: a population of rhesus macaques living on a remote island, as well as the staff and facilities that support them.

Opening up a new pathway to fight cancer, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have found a way to target an enzyme that is crucial to tumor growth while also blocking the mechanism that has made past attempts to target that enzyme resistant to treatment.

By Erica AndersenDentists and physicians practice health care from different perspectives, however, the oral and general health of their patients are of primary importance to both types of providers. A new online course taught by University of Pennsylvania faculty seeks to highlight the inextricable connections between the two professions.

Chantell Evans, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has been selected by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) as one of 15 early-career scientists in its first cohort of HHMI Hanna Gray Fellows.

The University of Pennsylvania’s Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter has been awarded a six-year, $22.6 million center grant from the National Science Foundation to support LRSM’s work in cutting-edge materials.