News Releases

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have found that juvenile cells on their way to becoming mature immune cells can develop into either T cells or other blood-cell types versus only being committed to the T-cell path. The findings appear in this week's issue of Nature, and have implications for better understanding how T-cell leukemias and other disorders arise.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Veterans Affairs in Seattle have found two new mutations in a disease protein called TDP-43 that is implicated in two neurodegenerative disorders: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also called Lou Gehrig's disease, and certain types of frontotemporal dementia (FTD). These mutations could potentially become candidates for drug targets.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have demonstrated that living human nerve cells can be engineered into a network that could one day be used for transplants to repair damaged to the nervous system. They report their findings in the February issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have demonstrated that a bacterial toxin from the common bacterium Staphylococcus aureus shuts down the control mechanism of the tunnel, called an ion channel, in immune cell membranes.

Media Advisory: Shiriki Kumanyika, PhD, MPH, Professor of Epidemiology and Associate Dean for Health Promotion and Health Prevention, at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and Virginia A. Stallings, MD, PhD, the Jean A. Cortner Endowed Chair in Pediatric Gastroenterology at Penn and Professor of Pediatrics at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, will be part of a panel at a special public session, Understanding Obesity and Childhood at the 2008 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Boston.

In an effort to empower the men of Philadelphia and the surrounding region, the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania is offering free prostate cancer screening, Saturday, March 1st, from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., at the First District Plaza, next to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, 3801 Market Street, Philadelphia. Screenings consist of a physical exam and a prostate-specific antigen - or PSA - blood test, provided free of charge.