News

Apr 27, 2026

One Health Microbiome Center names next doctoral interns for industry program

Penn State graduate students Natalie Ford and Mackenna Yount will spend this summer engaging in hands-on research with industry experts at the Hilden, Germany, headquarters of QIAGEN, a global leader in biotechnology for life sciences diagnostics, equipment and research.

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Apr 27, 2026

New clues for using common fungus to promote crop growth and health

Trichoderma species — a common fungus found in soils — have varying abilities to promote tomato plant growth and differentially affect the abundance of certain soil bacteria, according to a study led by researchers at Penn State. The work was the latest in a line of research evaluating the use of this common group of fungi as an alternative to pesticides for controlling soilborne pathogens, said Seogchan Kang, professor in the College of Agricultural Sciences and co-corresponding author of the study.

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Apr 22, 2026

Connected habitats help wildlife fight disease, strengthen protective microbes

A team led by Penn State biologists found that amphibians in connected natural forests and aquatic habitats were more likely to host beneficial skin microbes that inhibit a deadly fungal pathogen. But when these habitats become spatially separated due to planted crops, infrastructure development or other human land use, those microbial defenses weaken and pathogen infection levels can increase with potentially deadly results.

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Apr 15, 2026

Plant scientists receive $1.96M NIH grant to study plant-bacteria partnerships

A team of plant scientists in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences has received a $1.96 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to fund a study of how beneficial plant-bacteria partnerships evolve, persist, and can be harnessed to improve health and agriculture. This grant, called a Maximizing Investigator’s Research Award, supports a lab's long-term research vision rather than an individual project.

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Apr 08, 2026

Medina, Paris receive 2026 Excellence in Advising Award

Scott Medina, the William and Wendy Korb Early Career Professor and Dorothy and J. Lloyd Huck Chair in Nano Bioengineering; and Heather Paris, associate director of the advising center and career services at Penn State Wilkes-Barre, have been selected to receive the 2026 Penn State Excellence in Advising Award.

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Apr 08, 2026

WATCH: Cell ‘snowball’ may be answer to large-scale tissue engineering

Cell cultures — single layers of cells grown in a small dish — have enabled researchers to study biological growth, develop or test drugs and even discover what causes some diseases. Cell spheroids, 3D versions of cell cultures built using a process known as cell aggregation, are the next step in advancing this work, capable of more closely modeling real tissue.

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Apr 06, 2026

Seth Bordenstein named a Fellow of the AAAS

Seth Bordenstein, professor of biology and entomology, the Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Chair of Microbiome Sciences, and director of the Penn State One Health Microbiome Center, has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,

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Feb 26, 2026

Q&A: How can microbiome science solve problems in agriculture?

Decades of research has shown promise for using microbiome science to solve several problems facing agriculture, but these findings have not yet been translated to practical recommendations for growers, according to a team of scientists in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.

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Feb 26, 2026

Huck associate director elected fellow in American Academy of Microbiology

Andrew Patterson, John T. and Paige S. Smith Professor in the College of Agricultural Sciences, has been elected as a fellow in the American Academy of Microbiology. Fellows of the American Academy of Microbiology, an honorific leadership group within the American Society for Microbiology, are elected annually through a highly selective, peer-review process, based on their records of scientific achievement and original contributions that have advanced microbiology.

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Feb 11, 2026

Flipping and reversing mini-proteins could improve disease treatment

For the microbe that gives rise to tuberculosis, a team of researchers from Penn State and The University of Minnesota Medical School found that a potential solution may be chemically changing the structure of a naturally occurring peptide — a building block of proteins — to make it a more stable and effective antimicrobial agent, while reducing potential toxicity to human cells.

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