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Progress toward a treatment for Krabbe disease
Sequence of 8 MRI images showing treated versus untreated brains from 16 to 52 weeks

Treating dogs with Krabbe disease, a rare and fatal condition that also affects infants, with a gene therapy targeted to the brain led to remarkable results in a study led by a team from the School of Veterinary Medicine. (Image: Courtesy of Charles Vite)

Progress toward a treatment for Krabbe disease

The inherited disease, which typically kills children before their second birthday, has no cure, but a School of Veterinary Medicine study in a canine model offers hope for an effective gene therapy with lasting results.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Poultry in a pandemic: Getting the facts on keeping backyard flocks
hen in a coop with two eggs on hay on the ground

Poultry in a pandemic: Getting the facts on keeping backyard flocks

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Penn Vet’s Sherrill Davison has seen an increase in phone calls from new flock owners looking for general management resources for their birds. Here, she offers health and safety advice for keeping flocks healthy.

From Penn Vet

Getting gene therapy to the brain
Illustration of brain with DNA double helix

Crossing the blood-brain barrier to treat the whole brain has been a challenge for researchers aiming to treat inherited neurodegenerative disease. The results from a study in a large animal model offer “a big advance” in this pursuit, says John Wolfe of Penn Vet, Penn Medicine, and CHOP.

Getting gene therapy to the brain

Using a large animal model of genetic brain disease, researchers led by John H. Wolfe of the School of Veterinary Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia delivered an effective treatment across the blood-brain barrier to correct the whole brain.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Navigating cytokine storms
Illustration of a T cell releasing signaling molecules, IL-4, IL-5, IL-6, IL-10, and IL-13

An immune response can be helpful, harmful, or somewhere in between, in COVID-19 and many other medical conditions. 

  • Q&A

    • Navigating cytokine storms

    Pairing their expertise, Nilam Mangalmurti of the Perelman School of Medicine and Christopher Hunter of the School of Veterinary Medicine have been working to understand the protective and harmful aspects of the immune response, including in COVID-19.

    Katherine Unger Baillie

    Bats and COVID
    close-up image of bat on a tree trunk; three bare trees are in the right background

    Pennsylvania is home to nine bat species including the big brown bat, pictured here. Image: Pennsylvania Game Commission. 

    Bats and COVID

    A new study from Penn Vet's New Bolton Center tests the guano of North American bats currently in Pennsylvania wildlife rehabilitation centers for the presence of COVID-19.

    Kristina Linnea García

    Glowing dye may aid in eliminating cancer
    Surgeon uses an imaging machine to assess a tumor

    David Holt of the School of Veterinary Medicine and colleagues have been using an innovative imaging technique to seek out cancer in dogs undergoing surgery. (Image: John Donges)

    Glowing dye may aid in eliminating cancer

    In dogs with mammary tumors, researchers from the School of Veterinary Medicine and Perelman School of Medicine used a substance that glows under near-infrared light to illuminate cancer.

    Katherine Unger Baillie

    Food insecurity, not the ‘Quarantine 15,’ is the real pandemic concern
    A line of people outside a food bank wait on a sidewalk practicing social distancing and wearing face masks.

    A crowd of people wait in line outside a food pantry at St. Bartholomew's Roman Catholic Church in Elmhurst, Queens.

    Food insecurity, not the ‘Quarantine 15,’ is the real pandemic concern

    But results from a recent nationwide survey conducted by Penn researchers indicate that household food insecurity is a real effect of the pandemic, and not weight gain.

    From Penn Vet

    Helping pets cope with quarantine, and reopening
    Veterinarian in white coat holds hand out to a cat perched on a filing cabinet

    Carlo Siracusa, associate professor of clinical behavior medicine at the School of Veterinary Medicine (Image: John Donges/Penn Vet)

    Helping pets cope with quarantine, and reopening

    Having their owners at home constantly may have been heaven for some cats and dogs and burdensome for others. The School of Veterinary Medicine’s Carlo Siracusa explains how to recognize signs of animals’ stress and prepare for a return to normal routines.

    Katherine Unger Baillie

    Blocking tumor signals can hinder cancer’s spread
    Fluorescent microscopic image of lung tissue stained in blue and pink

    Studying the molecular players that foster cancer’s spread, a team of basic science researchers from Penn have identified a way to halt it. By inhibiting an enzyme, they successfully reduced the spread of lung metastases in a mouse model of melanoma, also significantly prolonging survival. (Image: Courtesy of Serge Fuchs)

    Blocking tumor signals can hinder cancer’s spread

    A cross-campus team led by Serge Fuchs of the School of Veterinary Medicine used an inhibitor of an enzyme called p38α kinase to suppress the spread of melanoma to the lungs in a mouse model.

    Katherine Unger Baillie

    Side Gigs for Good during COVID-19
    Person wearing a face mask in a grocery store standing next to a shopping cart.

    Side Gigs for Good during COVID-19

    Whether making masks, writing letters, raising funds, or shopping for neighbors, members of the Penn community have stepped up during the pandemic to support those in need.

    Michele W. Berger , Katherine Unger Baillie