News

Student awarded fellowship to study the genetics of lupus in diverse populations

Keenan Anderson-Fears, a student from Penn State’s Bioinformatics and Genomics doctoral program, is one of six individuals nationally to receive the Gina M. Finzi Memorial Student Summer Fellowship from the Lupus Foundation of America.

Rasgon named Huck Chair of Disease Epidemiology and Biotechnology

Jason Rasgon, professor of entomology and disease epidemiology, has been named Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Chair in Disease Epidemiology and Biotechnology.

Researcher gets grant to study biofilters to reduce livestock facility methane

A scientist in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences has received a $300,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to lead a team conducting research on using biofilters to mitigate methane from enteric emissions produced in livestock facilities.

Above-ground microbial communities that quell plant diseases can be developed

Microbial communities naturally living on the leaves and stems of tomato plants can be manipulated to suppress diseases that reduce productivity, according to Penn State researchers, offering hope that growers someday can apply these mixtures of bacteria and fungi to protect plants and improve harvests.

Penn State biologist receives NIH grant to help unlock biology of binge drinking

Nikki Crowley, assistant professor of biology and of biomedical engineering at Penn State, has been awarded a five-year, $1.6 million grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, part of the National Institutes of Health, to study the neurobiology of binge alcohol drinking.

The researchers also found that eating avocados daily improved the overall quality of the participants’ diets by eight points on a 100-point scale.

Daily avocados improve diet quality, help lower cholesterol levels

Eating one avocado a day for six months was found to have no effect on belly fat, liver fat or waist circumference in people with overweight or obesity, according to a new study. However, it did lead to a slight decrease in unhealthy cholesterol levels.

Seventeen Penn State graduate students have received 2022 NASA Pennsylvania Space Grant awards and been named graduate fellows

Graduate students awarded 2022 NASA Space Grant Fellowships

Seventeen Penn State graduate students have received 2022 NASA Pennsylvania Space Grant awards and been named graduate fellows.

Jared Ali named director of the Penn State Center for Chemical Ecology

Jared Ali, Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Chair of Chemical Ecology and associate professor of entomology in the College of Agricultural Sciences, has been named director of the Penn State Center for Chemical Ecology (CCE).

Laser writing may enable ‘electronic nose’ for multi-gas sensor

Environmental sensors are a step closer to simultaneously sniffing out multiple gases that could indicate disease or pollution, thanks to a Penn State collaboration. Huanyu “Larry” Cheng, assistant professor of engineering science and mechanics in the College of Engineering, and Lauren Zarzar, assistant professor of chemistry in Eberly College of Science, and their teams combined laser writing and responsive sensor technologies to fabricate the first highly customizable microscale gas sensing devices.

New machine learning technique shows how drugs can be repurposed

A new machine learning method to model gene expression levels might improve the identification of genes that cause human diseases, according to a new study by Penn State College of Medicine researchers.