Science & Technology

It’s well known that, when cells are subject to stress, starvation or viral infection, they sometimes adopt a cubic architecture. Unlike the simple spherical structure of membranes in healthy cells, these cubic membranes, or cubosomes, are very complex, forming an interconnected network of water channels resembling a “plumber’s nightmare.”

The round worm Caenorhabditis elegans, a nematode, is a puzzling creature.

Mitochondria, the mighty energy factories of the cell, often malfunction in cancer, as well as in other conditions such as aging, neurodegenerative disease and heart disease. Whether these changes in mitochondria actually contribute to the spread of cancer, however, has been controversial.

More than 90 percent of acute care hospitals and more than 75 percent of office-based physicians use electronic health records, or digital versions of patient charts, typi

Antiretroviral drugs have been life-changing therapies for HIV patients, but they can have significant side effects.

In a previous study, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania pioneered a process that could enable the efficient recycling of two rare-earth metals, neodymium and dysprosium, which are found in the small, powerful magnets in many high-tech

Mark Trodden, chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy in Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences, has devoted his career to studying the intersection of what he calls the physics

Interactions between an animal cell and its immediate environment, a fibrous network called the extracellular matrix, play a critical role in cell function, including growth and migration. But less understood is the mechanical force that governs those interactions.

Despite their obvious physical differences, elephants, lizards and trout all have something in common. They possess elongated, flexible structures at the rear of their bodies that we call tails.

Although the protein tau, which is associated with Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases, has been heavily studied for decades, its role in maintaining cell function is poorly understood.