News

Gang Ning, director of Penn State’s Microscopy & Cytrometry Facility (left), Todd LaJeunesse, associate professor of biology at Penn State (middle), and Drew Wham, a former graduate student in LaJeunesse’s lab, have been selected to receive the 2017 Tyge Christiansen Prize by the International Phycological Society

Huck Researchers Awarded Tyge Christensen Prize

Gang Ning, director of Penn State’s Microscopy & Cytrometry Facility, Todd LaJeunesse, associate professor of biology at Penn State, and Drew Wham, a former graduate student in LaJeunesse’s lab, have been selected to receive the 2017 Tyge Christensen Prize by the International Phycological Society

Plant Bio grad student Chris Benson

Plant Biology Student Chris Benson Lands $90,000 Grant From United States Golf Association

Chris Benson's work concerns adaptability in the turfgrass species Poa annua, with plans to guide breeding efforts for a phenotypically stable variety with applications on golf course putting greens. That research has attracted significant support from the USGA.

The application deadline to attend the 2019 Summer Institute in Migration Research Methods at Penn State is Feb. 18. IMAGE: FISHMAN64/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Summer Institute in Migration Research Methods to be held at Penn State

Penn State will host the second Summer Institute in Migration Research Methods from June 9-16 at the Millennium Science Complex at University Park.

Reconstructed 3D image of porous tissue strand using magnetic resonance imaging. IMAGE: OZBOLAT LABORATORY / PENN STATE

Micropores let oxygen and nutrients inside biofabricated tissues

Micropores in fabricated tissues such as bone and cartilage allow nutrient and oxygen diffusion into the core, and this novel approach may eventually allow lab-grown tissue to contain blood vessels, according to a team of Penn State researchers.

Living cells, regardless of the type, can be kept around for a long time and because they move constantly, can be photographed repeatedly to create new encryption keys. IMAGE: JENNIFER M. MCCANN / PENN STATE MRI

Better security achieved with randomly generating biological encryption keys

​Data breaches, hacked systems and hostage malware are frequently topics of evening news casts — including stories of department store, hospital, government and bank data leaking into unsavory hands — but now a team of engineers has an encryption key approach that is unclonable and not reverse-engineerable, protecting information even as computers become faster and nimbler.​

A structural model of the compact metal-bound form of the lanmodulin protein, which is 100 million times better at binding to lanthanides — the rare-earth metals used in smartphones and other technologies — than to other metals like calcium. IMAGE: PENN STATE

Bacterial protein could help find materials for your next smartphone

A newly discovered protein could help detect, target and collect from the environment the rare-earth metals used in smartphones. Two new studies by researchers at Penn State describe the protein, which is 100 million times better at binding to lanthanides — the rare-earth metals used in smartphones and other technologies — than to other metals like calcium.

Alex Weiner with his winning poster

MCIBS student Alex Weiner takes home international poster award

"Endosomes Dock Wnt Signaling Proteins at Dendrite Branch Points to Organize Local Microtubule Nucleation Sites" won first prize at the 2018 Mechanisms of Neuronal Remodelling Conference in Ein Gedi, Israel.

Andrew Zydney named recipient of Alan S. Michaels Award

Zydney's work has had a major impact on the design and development of important commercial membrane processes for the purification of monoclonal antibodies, which are used in treating cancer and other immunologic disorders.

An international research team has identified more than 600 new antimalarial drug candidates from a screen of over 500,000 chemical compounds. Researchers at Penn State then used a method they developed called metabolic fingerprint profiling to determine if 13 of the most potent compounds affect the malaria parasite’s metabolism. The method identifies similar patterns in metabolic response, and revealed that ten of the compounds (red branch) target the same metabolic pathway, the mitochondrial electron transport chain. Credit: Llinás lab, Penn State

Unprecedented screen of 500,000 compounds reveals new candidates for malaria prevention drug

A new study, published December 7, 2018, in the journal Science by an international team of researchers including two from Penn State, reveals a new set of chemical starting points for the first drugs to prevent malaria instead of just treating its symptoms.

Vasant G. Honavar, professor and Edward Frymoyer Chair of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State, has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Honavar named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Vasant G. Honavar, professor and Edward Frymoyer Chair of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State, has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He was elected by the AAAS Section on Information, Computing, and Communication for his distinguished contributions to research and leadership in data science.