Higher Education : In The News

Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University, working in tandem with University of Zurich scientists discover a chemical thought to be a vital piece in the Multiple Sclerosis puzzle, according to The Daily Mail.

In a major breakthrough in the battle against the devastating disease, researchers have pinpointed the chemical 'driving force' behind MS.

Without it, the disease does not develop. And when it is mopped up, symptoms are greatly eased, even in brains already ravaged by the illness.

The results come from experiments on mice but the researchers say they are 'quietly optimistic' that taking the same tack will help people with MS. The first trials on patients are penciled in for later this year.

Source: the Daily Mail (UK)
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The Village Voice is smitten with the editors at LaSalle University's student newspaper, who published a controversial story, and the entire front page, below the fold and a large swath of white space.

Here's a creative way to get around a gag order from your school's administration, college journos: run the story you want to run, just publish it below the fold. In fact, send a big fuck-you to your censors by publishing the entire front page below the fold. This is what the school paper at LaSalle University in Philadelphia did, and it's pretty good.

Source: Village Voice
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New technology to electronically assess head trauma is being developed by Villanova University engineering professor, according to the National Post.

Art commemorating the significance of pigeons comes down, while its counterpart, Mobile Museum of Pigeon Culture and History, remains in place at the University of the Arts, according to the UPI.

A display honoring the significance of pigeons in Philadelphia will start coming down Saturday.

Matt Zigler, a North Carolina resident attending the University of the Arts, erected the display in recent weeks, including a shrine-like series of boldly rendered depictions of the birds, where passersby are encouraged to make an offering of bird seed.

Nearby, the "Mobile Museum of Pigeon Culture and History" is still set up, all part of a project tied to Zigler's master's thesis.

Source: UPI
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Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine discover more genes that may be linked to Alzheimer's, according to NPR.

Two groups of researchers have scanned the genomes of thousands of individuals, looking for clues to genes involved in Alzheimer's disease. Gerard Schellenberg of the University of Pennsylvania explains how locating those genes could lead to new ways to treat or prevent the disease.

Alzheimer's disease is one of medical science's big mysteries, of course. It's difficult to diagnose. We don't really know what causes it, if there is any single cause. We have no real cure for it.

Well, writing this week in the journal Nature Genetics, researchers may have found some new clues to the disease. Two big consortia of researchers, one in the U.S., one in Europe, have sifted through the genomes of thousands of Alzheimer's patients and have come up with a handful of genes that seem to be linked to the condition. 

Source: NPR
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The USA Today reports the young professional population is on the rise in urban centers, especially in Philadelphia, which saw a 57 percent increase among college-educated 20- and 30-somethings.

In more than two-thirds of the nation's 51 largest cities, the young, college-educated population in the past decade grew twice as fast within 3 miles of the urban center as in the rest of the metropolitan area - up an average 26 percent compared with 13 percent in other parts.

"This is a real glimmer of hope," says Carol Coletta, head of CEOs for Cities, a non-profit consortium of city leaders that commissioned the research. "Clearly, the next generation of Americans is looking for different kinds of lifestyles - walkable, art, culture, entertainment."

Source: USA Today
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Philadelphia's Osage University Partners has set up a fund to provide profit to schools where initial research is done, according to The New York Times.

THERE are a lot of smart people in universities. Some may even be geniuses. Many of them are certainly good at inventing technologies that will change our lives.

But for the most part, universities aren't particularly adept at extracting the full measure of profit from all those innovations. While university technology transfer offices routinely license the intellectual property developed on campus, the schools themselves often aren't very nimble at retaining large stakes in the start-ups that exploit that property.

Source: The New York Times
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Surgeons at the University of Pennsylvania fix a patient's sleep apnea with a procedure involving robots, according to NPR.

At 32, it just didn't make sense that Daniel Sheiner was exhausted literally from the moment he woke up. "It didn't get any better over the course of the day, and I knew that was not normal," Sheiner says.

A sleep study confirmed Sheiner had one of the worst cases of apnea his doctors had ever seen. After trying a number of different treatments, his doctors finally tried a surgery using robots to treat his stubborn apnea � with positive results.



Source: NPR
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A new study by Thomas Jefferson University researchers finds that spontaneous cessation of smoking may signal the onset of lung cancer, according to The Washington Post.

A provocative, though small, study suggests that the very act of quitting smoking may be a symptom of not-yet-diagnosed lung cancer.

That's the curious conclusion reached by a team of researchers led by Barbara Campling at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia when they surveyed 115 lung cancer patients, all of them current or former smokers, at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Source: The Washington Post
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Just days before an exhibit of Chinese artifacts opened at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, officials pulled mummies and other antiquities from public view, as reported by The Associated Press.

The artifacts were part of "Secrets of the Silk Road." The exhibit has already traveled to museums in California and Texas without issue. Visitors to the Philadelphia museum will see a pared-down exhibit.

Penn museum spokeswoman Pam Kosty said she could not offer any more information beyond a statement saying Chinese officials had requested the items not be shown. She declined to identify the officials.

The mummies are particularly fascinating because they have Caucasian features, proving that populations migrated eastward from Europe and brought their customs and skills with them.

Other artifacts include clothing, fabrics, wooden and bone implements, and even preserved foods such as a wonton, spring roll and fried dough.

Original source: The Associated Press
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According to Professor Michael Oshinsky of Thomas Jefferson University, if you really want help overcoming a hangover--drink a cup of coffee with an aspirin.

Scientists have confirmed what millions have suspected for years if you want to soothe a tired head - simply take some caffeine and a painkiller.

A University of Pennsylvania scientist co-authored a research paper that sheds new light on the previously dismissed wing colors of many insects, reports Gizmodo.

Generations of biologists seem to have missed this partly because they didn't look for it, and partly because the colors are most evident against a dark background. Against a white background, they're invisible - which is exactly how most entomologists study transparent wings.

"You hold the wing up against the light, so you can see the veins," said study co-author Daniel Janzen, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Pennsylvania. "If you're looking through a microscope, you try to get a clear view behind the wing. It's the antithesis of getting wing color."

Original source: Gizmodo
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Jack Abraham and Nat Turner, one-time Wharton Venture Award winners, recently sold their companies for big profits, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Abraham sold two-year-old Milo Inc. to eBay Inc. last week in a deal worth about $75 million. Milo, which operates a website that helps consumers find products in brick-and-mortar stores, raised a $4 million Series A funding in November 2009 from True Ventures, Founder Collective and a roster of prominent angel investors.

Turner sold three-year-old demand-side advertising platform Invite Media Inc. to Google Inc. in June for a price north of $70 million. Invite Media, backed by First Round Capital, Comcast Interactive Capital and angels, helps ad buyers more efficiently purchase from the numerous and increasingly more real-time advertising exchanges.

"Penn produces these people that are tech and business savvy," (angel investor Chris) Dixon said. "I would love to say I mentored (Abraham and Turner), but they're just great."

Original source: Wall Street Journal
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A study authored by Drexel University's Joke Bradt says listening to music appears to have a calming effect on hospital patients, reports Reuters.

Each year, more than 300,000 Americans are put on mechanical ventilation in intensive care units across the country, many recovering from a serious accident, surgery, cancer, or any number of life-threatening events.

Ventilators make it difficult -- if not impossible -- for them to communicate their needs, or ask questions about their treatment or survival chances. connected to breathing machines, reports Reuters.

While the reason music works is still unclear, Bradt said in an e-mail to Reuters Health, it might provide a distraction, or somehow communicate with the brain regions responsible for emotional regulation.

Original source: Reuters
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The Scientist takes a quick look at the historic discovery of the genetic underpinnings of cancer, courtesy of Philly's finest some 50 years ago.

In 1956, Peter Nowell joined the University of Pennsylvania faculty and began what he calls "poorly defined studies of leukemia." By rinsing blood cells with tap water before staining and mounting them on a microscope slide, Nowell inadvertently caused the cells to swell and flatten, and most importantly, disrupted their mitotic spindle�allowing him to visualize their chromosomes more easily.

Nowell teamed up with David Hungerford, a PhD student at the nearby Fox Chase Cancer Center, and together they detected that a chunk seemed to be missing from chromosome 22 in the leukocytes of CML patients. They published their findings in 1960, and the shortened chromosome was named after the city where it was discovered. But their suggestion that the aberration itself was causing the cells to proliferate abnormally met with a less-than-enthusiastic reception, recalls Nowell. One reviewer even said that the observation probably had no relevance to the clinical disease.

Original source: The Scientist
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