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Advancing algorithmic care
a person standing in front of a large room of people the viewpoint from the back of a tall set of bleachers in an industrial room

Advancing algorithmic care

Experts from Penn share their perspectives on the role of advanced algorithms and AI in health care and what the future holds for digital health technologies.

Erica K. Brockmeier

An easier way of sneaking antibodies into cells
rendering of an antibody about to go through the membrane of a cell

Getting a complex protein like an antibody through the membrane of a cell without damaging either is a longstanding challenge in the life sciences. (Image: Penn Engineering)

An easier way of sneaking antibodies into cells

Penn Engineers have found a plug-and-play solution that makes antibodies compatible with the delivery vehicles commonly used to ferry nucleic acids through the membrane of a cell without damaging either.

Penn Today Staff

Basser Center takes aim at BRCA
basser center lab

Basser Center takes aim at BRCA

Twenty-five years after the discovery of genetic mutations that dramatically increase cancer risk, the Penn Medicine’s Basser Center for BRCA is building scientific knowledge alongside public awareness about BRCA-related cancers.

Katherine Unger Baillie

The science of sensations
Smiling scientist stands in a lab

Ishmail Abdus-Saboor has carved out a path studying the biology of touch, pain, and itch.

The science of sensations

To confront the ills of the opioid epidemic, scientists must develop a fundamental understanding of the biology of pain. Biologist Ishmail Abdus-Saboor’s work is setting the stage for screening alternative drugs and uncovering new pathways that an opioid-alternative could target.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Comprehensive dental care for a vulnerable population
Two Penn Dental students provide dental care to a patient in a dental chair.

Comprehensive dental care for a vulnerable population

In a new clinic at the School of Dental Medicine, refugees who survived torture are having all of their dental needs met by students and faculty.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Fruit flies’ microbiomes shape their evolution
fruit fly close-up on a piece of vegetation

An ambitious outdoor experiment in fruit flies at Pennovation Works revealed that an altered microbiome can drive evolutionary change. (Photo: Seth Rudman)

Fruit flies’ microbiomes shape their evolution

In just five generations, an altered microbiome can lead to genome-wide evolution in fruit flies, according to new research led by Paul Schmidt and postdoc Seth Rudman of the School of Arts and Sciences.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Inferno in the rainforest
Map of Brazil and other parts of South America showing myriad points of orange

Sensors on NASA satellites Terra and Aqua captured a record of thousands of points of fire in Brazil in late August. The fires pose a threat to the Amazon rainforest and to people living in and around it. (Image: NASA Earth Observatory)

Inferno in the rainforest

Satellite images have detected more than 100,000 points of fire in the Amazon this year. Scientists Reto Gieré and Alain Plante illuminate some less obvious impacts of the fires, including health threats and climate impacts.

Katherine Unger Baillie

A molecular ‘atlas’ of animal development
An abstract depiction of data features an elongated shape with various projections in pixels of different colors.

Each cell of a developing nematode worm embryo is catalogued at the molecular level in a new paper out in Science. In this visualization of the dataset, each dot represents a single cell, its color represents the age of the embryo it came from (orange=early, green=mid, blue/red=late), and the dots are arranged so that cells with similar transcriptomes are near each other. Visualized this way, the data form various thin “trajectories” that correspond to tissues and individual cell types. (Image: Cole Trapnell)

A molecular ‘atlas’ of animal development

Scientists have studied the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans for decades, making essential contributions to basic science. In the latest milestone, a team uses cutting-edge technology to individually profile the genes expressed in more than 80,000 cells in a developing C. elegans embryo.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Where ethics, welfare, and sustainability meet swine
pigs in large stalls at new bolton center

Where ethics, welfare, and sustainability meet swine

At New Bolton Center’s model pig farm, free-roaming sows are implanted with RFID chips, nourished by organic feed, and powered by solar energy.

Gina Vitale

Lung cell transplant boosts healing after the flu
Colorful fluorescent labeled cells appear in a tissue sample of a lung

Researchers successfully transplanted a special type of lung cell called AT2 cells (labeled in green) from healthy mice into mice that had experienced a severe flu infection. The AT2 cells that engrafted (in red) appear to have helped the animals recover more robustly. (Image: Aaron Weiner/School of Veterinary Medicine)

Lung cell transplant boosts healing after the flu

A serious case of the flu can cause lasting damage to the lungs. In a study in mice, researchers found that transplanting cells from the lungs of healthy animals enhanced healing in others that had had a severe respiratory infection.

Katherine Unger Baillie