Penn Medicine News Blog Archive: Research

Basser.graphic.blue.background.expanded This week, when Oscar-winning actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie revealed that she underwent surgery to remove her breasts after learning that she carries one of the BRCA gene mutations that put her at high risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer, the news hit home here at the University of Pennsylvania. Just a year ago, Penn announced the creation of the Basser Research Center for BRCA, which was made possible by a $25 million gift from Penn alums Mindy and Jon Gray, in honor of Mindy Gray’s sister, Faith Basser, who died of ovarian cancer at age 44. As the only center in the United States devoted solely to research on prevention and treatment for cancers related to BRCA mutations, Jolie’s story turned a spotlight on the important work in progress there, and the experiences of the many other families with similar cancer risks.

Penn Medicine faculty, staff, and students shared their love and knowledge of biomedical science with families, students, and the general public at a dozen events during the 2013 Philadelphia Science Festival.

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.

In an online video series, Florie Charles, a doctoral student at the University of California at San Francisco, and founder of Youreka Science, simply uses a white board and colored markers (and occasionally a small cut out mouse -- animal, not computer peripheral) to explain findings from recent papers in an accessible, fresh, and engaging way. One of her newest videos happens to feature a recent publication from the lab of Garret FitzGerald, MD, FRS, director of Penn Medicine's Institute of Translational Medicine and Therapeutics.

To show its gratitude to all laboratory professionals, the department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine celebrated Medical Laboratory Professionals Week April 22-26, with a host of activities, such as Phillies Night, in appreciation of all the hard work and dedication of the hundreds of staff and faculty members working in more than 30 different laboratories across the Penn campus.

Can sleeping actually make you MORE tired? For many patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), they awake each morning thinking they had a full night’s rest, only to feel exhausted and unfocused day after day. This counterintuitive situation occurs because OSA sufferers may wake up dozens of times an hour...

The labs of senior authors Yale E. Goldman, and Erika L.F. Holzbaur, both in the Physiology department, have been studying molecular motors for close to a combined five decades

Penn’s signature event at the 3rd annual Philadelphia Science Festival next week is a sure sign of the times. “Big Ideas: Funding and Innovation” draws on current themes and reminders of where the bright ideas really come from.

Women who develop breast cancer while they’re young are often searching for answers about the cause for their disease or what they can do to improve their chances of being cured. While an increasing number of large genetic testing panels promise to scrutinize their DNA to uncover clues, a team of researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine and the Abramson Cancer Center has found that those powerful tests tend to produce more questions than they answer.

Back in December, when the chatter about budget cuts to the National Institutes of Health started getting louder, Penn PhD students Michael Allegrezza and Shaun O’Brien decided it was time to join the conversation and advocate. They wanted to bring that on-the-ground scientist voice into the mix but knew it...

A scientist's life is a busy one, and sometimes it can include interacting with the news media to share the findings of their research. But talking to reporters is not something most scientists learn in school. The first Penn Media Training Workshop, aimed at science and medical faculty from across...

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.

The Center for Brain Injury and Repair will again participate in Science Day at the Ball Park, as part of the 2013 Philadelphia Science Festival

Mariell Jessup, MD 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. As we wrap-up our Heart Month blog post series, I asked Penn Medicine’s Mariell Jessup, MD, medical director of the Heart...

Depression is one of the most common types of mental illness. Estimated to affect over 17 million people in the United States, it can afflict anyone at any time. Patients commonly report feelings of sadness, fear, hopelessness, and worthlessness, even if everything else in their lives seems to be going...

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. Research studies have shown that medications commonly used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder – such as Adderall, Dexedrine and Ritalin – have a...

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. The mortality rate from both heart disease and stroke have decreased significantly in the past decade, but they still remain the #1 and #4...

 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. “I know this sounds like a cliché, but one of the main reasons I’m interested in learning about the genetic basis of heart...

Frank Oppenheimer, founder of the famed science museum in San Francisco, the Exploratorium, called artists and scientists “the official ‘noticers’ of society,” adding that “they notice things that other people either have never learned to see or have learned to ignore, and communicate those ‘noticings’ to others.” Lili Guo, a...

The new issue of Penn Medicine (Fall 2012) has a cover story on the work of David F. Dinges, PhD, with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The article’s hook is the recent completion of the Mars-500 experiment, a multinational effort to simulate a manned mission to Mars. Six...