Bioinformatics And Genomics News | Bioinformatics and Genomics

Jan 28, 2025

New Annual Summit Focuses on Graduate Student Resiliency

Earlier this month, the Huck Institutes, in partnership with the J. Jeffrey and Ann Marie Fox Graduate School at Penn State, hosted the Inaugural Huck Institutes T32 Summit.

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Flies play a crucial role as pollinators, second only to bees in terms of the volume of crops and habitat they pollinate. Pictured here is a blue fly pollinating common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca). Credit: Martha B. Moss/Penn State Extension Master Gardener / Penn State. Creative Commons

Jan 02, 2025

Pollinators most vulnerable to rising global temperatures are flies, study shows

New research led by Penn State scientists suggests flies are increasingly at risk due to rising global temperatures.

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A led by Penn State researchers compared two treatments for a common uterine infection, called clinical metritis, that can lead to serious health problems for dairy cows. One treatment was based on antibiotics and the other was not. Both treatments had a similar clinical cure rate in mild cases of the disease. Credit: Penn State. Creative Commons

Jan 02, 2025

New treatment for dairy cows could help fight antibiotic resistance, study finds

A concentrated sugar solution could be just as effective as antibiotics at treating a common infection in dairy cows, according to a new study led by researchers at Penn State.

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This image depicts a conceptual mobile application designed to empower health care providers to capture and analyze placenta images at birth for immediate diagnostic insights. Credit: Sonhita Chakraborty / Penn State. Creative Commons

Dec 18, 2024

Placenta assessment tool aims to improve neonatal, maternal care

A multi-national, multi-institutional team led by Penn State researchers developed a new tool that enables doctors to examine placentas right at the bedside using just a phone.

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New research finds sex-specific regions of the brain can relieve the detrimental effects of chronic stress in male and female mice. Left: Schematic showing a cortical microcircuit with three types of interneurons expressing somatostatin (SST), parvalbumin (PV) or vasointestinal peptide (VIP) and their distinct patterns of innervation of glutamatergic output neurons (PNs), with thin lines representing axons that send chemical signals and the thicker lines of PNs representing dendrites that receive information. There is selective innervation of the distal ends of PN dendrites by axons of SST neurons. Right: Increased activity of SST neurons by genetically induced disinhibition, on top right, or by chemogenetic activation of SST neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex, on bottom right, leads to stress resilience and facilitates the reversal of the detrimental behavioral effects of stress exposure in male but not female mice. Credit: Bernhard Lüscher / Penn State. Creative Commons

Dec 17, 2024

Brain regions that relieve effects of chronic stress in mice differ based on sex

In two new studies, researchers made mice resilient to stress by activating neurons in different brain regions and found that the changes involved are highly sex-specific

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Dec 12, 2024

Center for Socially Responsible AI awards seed funding to seven diverse projects

The Penn State Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence (CSRAI) has announced the results of its most recent seed-funding competition.

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Penn State and U.S. National Science Foundation representatives cut a ribbon celebrating the official launch of the U.S. National Science Foundation National Synthesis Center for Emergence in the Molecular and Cellular Sciences (NCEMS) with the Penn State Nittany Lion mascot. The NCEMS launch took place on Monday, Nov. 18, and provided information about open calls for working groups, fellowships and internships, as well as a growth trajectory over the next five years. Credit: Keith Hickey/Huck Institutes. All Rights Reserved.

Dec 02, 2024

Heard on Campus: Launch of new center in molecular and cellular sciences, NCEMS

Reception celebrates new NSF-funded National Synthesis Center for Emergence in the Molecular and Cellular Sciences at Penn State.

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Nov 15, 2024

Q&A: How do microbiomes influence the study of life?

Microorganisms — bacteria, viruses and other tiny life forms — may drive biological variation in visible life as much, if not more, than genetic mutations, creating new lineages and even new species of animals and plants, according to Seth Bordenstein, director of Penn State’s One Health Microbiome Center within the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences.

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The novel Cleavage High-throughput Assay (CHiTA) developed at Penn State provides a scarless method to characterize thousands of diverse small self-cleaving RNA enzymes, called twister ribozymes, in a single experiment. The image shows 2D models of some of the tested ribozymes that had imperfections in their helical and loop elements but were still active, demonstrating that twister ribozyme's ability to self-cleave is tolerant of these slight structural imperfections. Credit: Lauren McKinley and Philip Bevilacqua / Penn State. Creative Commons

Nov 06, 2024

Testing thousands of RNA enzymes helps find first ‘twister ribozyme’ in mammals

A new method, developed by Penn State researchers, can test the activity of thousands of predicted ribozymes in a single experiment.

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Oct 31, 2024

Huck researchers reflect on the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

This month, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three scientists credited with historic breakthroughs surrounding proteins and their structures. Three Huck researchers working on similar challenges chime in with their thoughts.

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