Health Sciences

Women know that Pap tests are a useful screening test for cervical cancer, but according to a new study led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, most of those surveyed are unaware of the updated screening guidelines for the appropriate frequency of Pap tests in low-risk women.

Cell division is the basis of life and requires that each daughter cell receive the proper complement of chromosomes. In most organisms, this process is mediated at the familiar constricted intersection of X-shaped chromosomes. This area, called the centromere, is where special proteins gather and attach to pull daughter cells apart during cell division.

At the forefront of a field known as “neurocriminology,” Adrian Raine of the University of Pennsylvania has long studied the interplay between biology and environment when it comes to antisocial and criminal behavior.

By Madeleine Stone  @themadstone        Decorating the outside of cells like tiny antenna, a diverse community of sugar molecules acts like a telecommunications system, sending and receiving information, recognizing and responding to foreign molecules and neighboring cells.

Some at-risk patients opted out of comprehensive cancer gene screening when presented with the opportunity to be tested for the presence of genes linked to various cancers, according to a recent study led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the 

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Michigan State University presented new preclinical data this week that evaluates the efficacy of a gene therapy treatment for achromatopsia, a rare inherited retinal disease that involves cone cells. The disease affects humans as well as dogs.

A study in this week’s Science Translational Medicine is a classic example of how seemingly unlikely collaborators can come together to make surprising discoveries.

nly half of women with cystic fibrosis (CF) report using contraception and frequently apt to become pregnant unintentionally, according to a new study from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Lariat device, which has been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for soft tissue approximation (placement of a suture) during surgical procedures, is associated with a significant incidence of death and urgent cardiac surgery during its frequent off-label use to prevent stroke in patients with the irregular heartbeat known as atrial fibrillation.

Gene therapy for Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), an inherited disorder that causes loss of night- and day-vision starting in childhood, improved patients’ eyesight within weeks of treatment in a clinical trial of 15 children and adults at the Scheie Eye Institute at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.