Penn Medicine News Blog Archive: Aging

In an update to recent research, Todd Cohen, Virginia Lee, and the Penn CNDR team have found an unusual behavior in the protein tau. It is literally its own worst enemy - tau is actually an enzyme that adds an acetyl group to itself, a process called autoacetylation.

Penn Medicine will play a starring role in the Philadelphia Science Festival again this year. The Festival is a citywide collaboration showcasing science and technology every April. This year it runs from April 19 - 28, 10 days to celebrate the region’s strengths in science and technology, bringing together more than 100 partners from academia to museums to restaurants.

Officially our nation’s first hospital, Pennsylvania Hospital has been a stalwart pillar of its surrounding Philadelphia community since its founding in 1751. No wonder than, with over two and a half centuries of history and continuous service behind it, the hospital inspires its employees to “give back” to the community....

To celebrate February as American Heart Month, the News Blog is highlighting some of the latest heart-centric news and stories from all areas of Penn Medicine. At first pass, lariat seems like just a hifalutin' word for the more down-to-earth, lasso – a long, noosed rope. For most, either word...

Penn Medicine is the first in the region to begin testing a new procedure to help people whose high blood pressure can't be controlled using currently available medications.

Metformin, the most widely prescribed diabetes drug, has come full circle from a home remedy in the European medieval apothecary called goat’s rue to now being investigated for a host of modern chronic conditions.

In December and early January, years of neurological research unfolded in a few weeks time as papers published the work of Penn researchers and were able to deepen our understanding of a variety of conditions, both rare and common, hopefully getting closer to refining or finding effective treatments as a result.

Taking a look back, 2012 has been a year marked by breakthroughs in medical research, system-wide growth, and landmark philanthropic support for Penn Medicine. As we set our sights on the year ahead, we also celebrate the past year's accomplishments and give thanks to the outstanding faculty, staff, and students...

Last month, I wrote a post in anticipation of starting the training necessary to become a volunteer with Penn Wissahickon Hospice. Since that time, I’ve completed training to become an inpatient hospice greeter and actually volunteered twice. Although it’s still very early on in my experience, I think I’ve gleaned a few insights that I wanted to share.

Modern day medical imaging exams have become a critical diagnostic tool for conditions of all kinds – from detecting the earliest breast cancers, long before a tumor could grow large enough for a woman to feel a lump in her own body, to finding malformations in the hearts of tiny...

Life is full of embarrassing moments. Who among us hasn’t suffered the mild mortification of unknowingly walking around with toilet paper trailing from a shoe? Or an unzipped fly? How many of us know what it’s like to emerge from an underwater dive only to discover that part of our...

It's becoming more and more common to find out a relative or friend has to leave his/her job to care for a loved one with Alzheimer's disease. Just yesterday, I heard about a colleague who is facing this difficult situation. In fact, the Alzheimer’s Association estimates in 2011, 15.2 million...

Cardiologists at Penn Medicine are testing devices that can allow heart failure patients to be monitored from the comfort of their own homes instead of having to make trips to and from the hospital.

The lab of Erika Holzbaur, a professor of Physiology at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, has been using live-cell imaging to get a better handle on what happens when the transport of cellular cargo goes off track, and how that may be the start of neurodegenerative diseases. In this case, a Parkinson’s-like disorder and a hereditary form of motor neuron disease.

People can have a brain full of Alzheimer's disease, but not have the dementia that typically goes along with it. By the numbers, this subset of people can have many plaques and tangles in the brain, enough to qualify them for a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, but in reality, they...

In a layer cake of research labs nestled on separate floors in a remote corner of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, a new use for an existing drug was uncovered. The drug, epothilone D (EpoD), stalled after original tests as a cancer treatment, but Perelman School of Medicine...

To celebrate February as American Heart Month, the News Blog is highlighting some of the latest heart-centric news and stories from all parts of Penn Medicine. This month marks the five-year anniversary of Penn Medicine’s first implantation of a temporary total artificial heart (TAH) in a patient suffering from end-stage...

To celebrate February as American Heart Month, the News Blog is highlighting some of the latest heart-centric news and stories from all parts of Penn Medicine. Hot flashes. Night sweats. Sleep disturbances. Mood swings. Irregular and racing hearts. These are all signs of menopause setting in, the time in a...

To celebrate February as American Heart Month, the News Blog is highlighting some of the latest heart-centric news and stories from all parts of Penn Medicine. The flowers and cards have all been delivered. The chocolates were devoured and Cupid can now take his annual break. But just because Valentine’s...

For diseases historically considered in the domain of distinct neurological sub-specialties - movement disorders, neuromuscular conditions, and dementia - the steady increase in our understanding of their overlapping causes and symptoms, as well as their co-existence in the same individual, has led to a shift in how care is delivered. Physicians, nurse practitioners, therapists, and other care-team members are cross-training and collaborating more than ever.