Health Sciences

University of Pennsylvania researchers have made another advance in understanding how the brain detects errors caused by unexpected sensory events. This type of error detection is what allows the brain to learn from its mistakes, which is critical for improving fine motor control.  

One of the goals of genome sequencing is to identify genetic mutations associated with increased susceptibility to disease. Yet by and large these discoveries have been made in people of European or Asian ancestry, resulting in an incomplete picture of global genetic variation in disease vulnerability.

Hoping to encourage sufficient investments by pharmaceutical companies in expensive gene therapies, which often consist of a single treatment, a Penn researcher and the chief medical officer of CVS Health outline an alternative payment model in this month’s issue of Nature Biotechnology.

Over the years researchers have made tremendous strides in the understanding and treatment of cancer by searching genomes for links between genetic alterations and disease.

Patients with sepsis, one of the most time-sensitive and hard-to-detect illnesses in medicine, are more likely to survive the life-threatening condition when treated at a hospital that sees a higher volume of sepsis cases.

Treating the rare disease MPS I is a challenge. MPS I, caused by the deficiency of a key enzyme called IDUA, eventually leads to the abnormal accumulation of certain molecules and cell death. 

For decades, researchers have used petri dishes to study cell movement. These classic tissue culture tools, however, only permit two-dimensional movement, very different from the three-dimensional movements that cells make in a human body.

Science and art are often perceived to be at opposite ends of the academic spectrum. But Danielle Bassett, a 2014 MacArthur Fellow, believes the two disciplines can inform each other in tangible ways.

A Penn Medicine-developed drug has received orphan status in Europe this week for the treatment of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH), a rare, life-threatening disease that causes anemia due to destruction of red blood cells and thrombosis.