News
Sep 26, 2019
Melissa Rolls appointed Paul Berg Professor of Biochemistry
Melissa Rolls, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, has been named the Paul Berg Professor of Biochemistry. The professorship was created in 1995 by an anonymous donor in honor of Paul Berg, a 1948 Penn State graduate who was named a Distinguished Alumnus in 1974 and earned the Nobel Prize in 1980 for developing a method to map the structure and function of DNA.
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Sep 24, 2019
Penn State researchers receive grant to explore novel method of anticoagulation
Two Penn State biomedical engineering faculty members have received a two-year, $200,000 grant from the American Heart Association (AHA) to explore potential solutions to thrombosis, or blood clot formation, a prevalent issue with blood-contacting medical devices such as heart valves, blood pumps and cardiac stents.
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Sep 24, 2019
Virus may jump species through 'rock-and-roll' motion with receptors
Like a janitor thumbing through a keychain to find just the right key to open a lock, the "rock-and-roll" motion of the canine parvovirus during the binding process may help explain how the virus can find the spot on a receptor to infect not just dogs, but multiple species, according to an international team of researchers.
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Sep 19, 2019
New tool in fight against malaria
Redesigning molecules originally developed to treat the skin disease psoriasis could lead to an effective new drug against malaria, according to an international team of researchers.
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Sep 12, 2019
Gene therapy helps functional recovery after stroke
A new gene therapy turns glial cells—abundant support cells in the brain—into neurons, repairing damage that results from stroke and significantly improving motor function in mice.
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Aug 27, 2019
Research predicts stability of mosquito-borne disease prevention
More than half of the people in the world, including in the United States, live alongside Aedes aegypti — the mosquito that transmits dengue, Zika and other often deadly viruses. Dengue virus, alone, infects nearly 400 million people worldwide each year.
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Aug 13, 2019
Asian longhorned beetle larvae eat plant tissues that their parents cannot
Despite the buzz in recent years about other invasive insects that pose an even larger threat to agriculture and trees — such as the spotted lanternfly, the stink bug and the emerald ash borer — Penn State researchers have continued to study another damaging pest, the Asian longhorned beetle.
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Jul 17, 2019
New tuberculosis tests pave way for cow vaccination programs
Skin tests that can distinguish between cattle that are infected with tuberculosis (TB) and those that have been vaccinated against the disease have been created by an international team of scientists.
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Jul 08, 2019
Some green ash trees show some resistance to emerald ash borers
Genes in green ash trees that may confer some resistance to attacks by the emerald ash borer express themselves only once the tree detects the invasive beetle's feeding, according to Penn State researchers.
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Jul 02, 2019
Sense of smell, pollution and neurological disease connection explored
A consensus is building that air pollution can cause neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease, but how fine, sooty particles cause problems in the brain is still an unanswered question. Now a team of Penn State researchers, using mice, have found a possible way, but more research is still needed.
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