News Releases

Five years ago, David C. Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSc, both a Penn Medicine researcher and patient, tried an experimental treatment based on his laboratory research findings in the hopes of saving his own life.

While more light is being shed on the effects that concussions have on player performance, the researchers sought to examine how athletic performance was affected immediately, which has not been studied extensively. The research was published in American Journal of Sports Medicine.

A crucial signaling pathway that can tell the immune system to fight off cancer can also be co-opted by cancer cells to put the brakes on the immune system, according to a new study from researchers in the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

While the presence of beta-amyloid plaques in the brain may be a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, giving patients an amyloid PET scan is not an effective method for measuring their cognitive function, according to a new study from researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jefferson University.

A rare, short-lived population of immune cells in the bloodstream may serve as ‘periscopes’ to monitor immune status via lymph nodes deep inside the body, according to researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Their findings are published this month in the Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI).

For the past 20 years, researchers have been trying to perfect the construction of human artificial chromosomes, or HACs for short. In a paper published today in Cell, Penn researchers describe a new way to form an essential part of the artificial chromosome, called the centromere, by bypassing the biological requirements needed to form a natural one. Simply put, they biochemically delivered a protein called CENP-A directly to HAC DNA to simplify the building of a HAC in the lab.

Katherine L. Nathanson, MD, deputy director of the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania and the Pearl Basser Professor for BRCA-Related Research in Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, has been awarded a $3 million research grant from the Gray Foundation.

Brain imaging of 40 U.S. government personnel who experienced a host of neurological symptoms after possible exposure of an unknown source while serving in Cuba revealed significant differences in brain tissue and connectivity when compared to healthy individuals, according to a new report from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. The findings are published today in JAMA.

Music is a viable alternative to sedative medications in reducing patient anxiety prior to an anesthesia procedure, according to a Penn Medicine study published today in the journal Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine.