Health Sciences

Katalin Susztak, MD, PhD, an associate professor of Medicine and Genetics in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has received a $3 million grant from a consortium of pharmaceutical companies to identify genes and other characteristics that are signs of rapid decline in kidney function in patients with diabetic kidney disease.​​​​​​​

A new Zika vaccine candidate has the potential to protect against the virus with a single dose, according to a research team led by scientists from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. As reported in Nature this week, preclinical tests showed promising immune responses in both mice and monkeys.

Depending on the specific type, bacteria in a woman’s vagina and cervix may increase the risk of premature birth or protect against it, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Body shaming is a pervasive form of prejudice, found in cyber bullying, critiques of celebrities' appearances, at work and school, and in public places for everyday Americans. People who are battling obesity face being stereotyped as lazy, incompetent, unattractive, lacking willpower, and to blame for their excess weight.

Across the world, social media users leave a trail of clues about themselves each time they Tweet, post to Facebook, write a Yelp review, and apply a filter and hashtags to their latest Instagram photo. Under the leadership of Raina Merchant, MD, MSHP, researchers and physicians at Penn Medicine are mining those clues to find what ails them – and how to fix it.

Some of Penn Medicine’s biggest accomplishments included employing virtual reality devices to treat phantom limb pain, performing Penn’s third bilateral hand transplant, and using CRISPR to treat hemophilia in mice.

Diabetes accounts for 12 percent of deaths in the United States, a significantly higher percentage than previous research revealed, making it the third-leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer, according to findings from the University of Pennsylvania and Boston University published in

Every time a hormone is released from a cell, every time a neurotransmitter leaps across a synapse to relay a message from one neuron to another, the cell must undergo exocytosis. This is the process responsible for transporting cellular contents via lipid-encapsulated vesicles to the cell surface membrane and then incorporating or secreting them through membrane fusion.

In early December, when a mother bear and her three cubs turned up dead in a church parking lot in northeast Pennsylvania, it sparked CSI-like intrigue.

J. Larry Jameson has been reappointed executive vice president of the University of Pennsylvania for the Health System and dean of Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine.