the University of Pennsylvania
(SAN DIEGO) - Central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) fell by more than 90 percent during the past three years at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania due to a multi-pronged approach combining leadership initiatives, electronic infection surveillance, checklists to guide line insertion and maintenance, and implementation of the Toyota Production System to encourage bes
PHILADELPHIA - The human brain's sensitivity to unexpected outcomes plays a fundamental role in the ability to adapt and learn new behaviors, according to a new study by a team of psychologists and neuroscientists from the University of Pennsylvania.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and Pennsylvania State University have identified for the first time a specific "niche factor" in the mouse testes called colony stimulating factor 1, Csf1, that has a direct effect on sperm stem cell self-renewal.
(PHILADELPHIA) - Sick or injured African-American patients wait about an hour longer than patients of other races before being transferred to an inpatient hospital bed following emergency room visits, according to a new national study published in the journal Academic Emergency Medicine.
A new analysis finds that when colorectal cancer patients seek out health information from the internet and news media, they are more likely to be aware of and receive the latest treatments for their disease.
An international team of scientists led by a Princeton University group recently discovered that on the surface of certain materials collective arrangements of electrons move in ways that mimic the presence of a magnetic field where none is present.
A common butterfly, found in a variety of habitats from the southern United States to northern Argentina, is actually comprised of at least 10 separate species, according to researchers from the University of Pennsylvania. Astraptes fulgerator, a medium-large skipper butterfly, is a routine visitor to urban gardens and tropical rainforests. While the ''species'' has been known to science since 1775, only now has examination of a small and standardized signature piece of the genome -- a technique called DNA barcoding -- shown that this ''species'' is really an amalgam of a number of genetically distinct lineages, each with different caterpillars and preferences in food plant and ecosystem. ''It raises the questions of how many other species out there are really multiple species like this one and what that might mean to wildlife conservation.''
Sometimes it is the extremes that point the way forward. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have induced nerve fibers -- or axons -- to grow at rates and lengths far exceeding what has been previously observed. To mimic extreme examples in nature and learn more about neuronal physiology, they have mechanically stretched axons at rates of eight millimeters per day, reaching lengths of up to ten centimeters without breaking. This new work has implications for spinal cord and nerve-damage therapy, since longer implantable axons are necessary for this type of repair.
Retroviruses are one of the most common vehicles for delivering therapeutic payloads via gene therapy in animal models of disease and human patients. Viruses integrate into host DNA to replicate, but exactly where they insert themselves has become a topic of increasing importance. This is of special concern when integration is near an oncogene that may lead to uncontrolled, cancerous cell growth. Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have completed the first whole-genome survey of where three commonly used retroviruses integrate into human DNA.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have created a library of small protein-like molecules that can self-assemble to form hollow corkscrew-like pores that could mimic pores seen in living systems. These molecules, formed from short chains of amino acids called peptides attached to tree-like fragments called dendrons, represent the first successful attempt at creating man-made pores that can form in solution and in bulk.
Alzheimer's disease symptoms begin, on average, almost seven years earlier in U.S. Latinos than they do in non-Latino U.S. whites, according to new research. Another study suggests that African Americans bear a disproportionate burden of Alzheimer's disease. Two additional studies suggest ways to improve the study of Alzheimer's among African Americans.
Researchers report success in monkeys of an innovative triple-vaccine strategy aimed at creating an effective anti-HIV vaccine regimen. In a test of the new approach, the scientists sought to maximize the immune response to a truncated HIV gene called Gag and succeeded in dramatically stimulating the production of CD8+ T cells responsive to Gag. Many scientists believe that CD8+ T cells will be an important key to creating an effective HIV vaccine.
Humans are social creatures, but robots, for the most part, are not. To help emergency response personnel in the trenches, a team of researchers is writing the playbook to turn a group of robots into a single well-oiled machine. They are devising software that will allow small robots to coordinate their actions and carry out complex commands from a human operator.
From the National Science Foundation:
An important clinical advance in the prevention of heart disease has been identified. The study involved a novel pharmacologic approach ? inhibition of the cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) ? and showed that this approach is highly effective in raising high-density lipoprotein (HDL) levels in patients with low levels. The drug torcetrapib, made by Pfizer, significantly increased levels of HDL in patients with low levels of this "good" cholesterol, whether or not they were also being treated with the cholesterol-lowering drug atorvastatin (Lipitor).
The universe reached the climax of its star-building activity five billion years ago ? more recently than previously thought ? according to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Edinburgh. The astronomers sifted through the fossil record of 96,545 nearby galaxies to chronicle the complete history of star formation over time. Their findings, reported in the April 8 issue of the journal Nature, also determined that the more massive a galaxy the earlier its stars were formed, indicating that galaxies form stars differently depending on weight.
