News
Jun 16, 2026
Q&A: What does science say about plants as medicine?
Plants have always played an integral role in traditional medicine and healing practices, according to Kent Vrana, Elliot S. Vesell Professor of Pharmacology at Penn State College of Medicine, and they continue to shape health and medicine today. In this Q&A, Vrana discussed the relationship between plant science and human health and the growing role of plant-derived solutions in medicine.
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Jun 16, 2026
Q&A: Can plants help reverse climate change?
Heatwaves are arriving sooner and becoming hotter, with the United Kingdom recording May 25 as its hottest day in May since tracking began more than a century ago, only for the record to break again the next day. While humans can turn to artificial means of cooling, such as air conditioning or swimming pools, plants are left to cope with heat and frequently co-occurring droughts on their own. Sarah M. Assmann, Waller Professor of Biology at Penn State, is working to better understand how plants respond to environmental signals — and is applying that understanding to develop crops more resilient to environmental stress.
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Jun 16, 2026
Microbiome pioneer Jacques Ravel named 2026 Microbiome Medal Laureate
The One Health Microbiome Center has selected Jacques Ravel, professor of microbiology and immunology and director of the Center for Advanced Microbiome Research and Innovation, Institute for Genome Sciences, at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, as the second laureate of the Microbiome Medal. This annual, competitive award honors a scholar or group of scholars who nobly extend excellence, acumen and ingenuity in research, mentorship and service to the global field of microbiome science.
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Jun 10, 2026
Huck names Leadership Fellows for 2026-27
The Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences has selected three faculty members to serve as Huck Leadership Fellows for the 2026-27 academic year. The competitive program prepares faculty for future leadership roles while engaging them in strategic initiatives that advance interdisciplinary research at Penn State.
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Jun 09, 2026
$2M NIH grant to support study of how the brain and body acclimate to stress
Experiencing stress leads to a suite of rapid physiological changes, and over time, the body can acclimate to the stress, eventually changing an individual’s baseline brain state. To improve understanding of the changes in the brain and body during acclimation to stress using a mouse model, the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences has awarded a five-year, $2 million grant to Grayson Sipe, assistant professor of biology in the Penn State Eberly College of Science.
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Jun 09, 2026
Artificial eyes could bring human-like sight to self-driving cars, robots
Although self-driving cars and sophisticated robots use advanced cameras, computer algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) to picture their surroundings, these artificial eyes struggle to remain reliable in mixed lighting conditions. A team of researchers, co-led by an engineer from Penn State, has proposed a solution that mimics the mechanics of the human eye to adapt from bright to dark light in seconds.
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Jun 08, 2026
Materials lab in national program to develop wearable eye health system
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has awarded up to $75.8 million to four research teams through its Ocular Laboratory for Analysis of Biomarkers (OCULAB) program. Researchers from Penn State will develop biosensors for the Closed-Loop Sensing and Microdosing for Dry Eye and Systemic Disease Management (COSMIC) team led by Lacristat, a California-based ophthalmology company.
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Jun 04, 2026
Huck seeks grad students for immersive facility assistantships
The Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences is seeking applicants for four half-time (20-hour) graduate assistantships within Huck Core Facilities during the fall 2026 semester. Graduate assistants will be placed in a single Huck core facility, chosen by the student, for hands-on experience with that facility’s technologies and applications. The assistants will contribute to projects involving the development, optimization, or application of methods and technologies within the selected facility
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Jun 01, 2026
Q&A: New text to serve as reference for advances in plant development
Hong Ma, professor of biology and J. Lloyd Huck and Dorothy Foehr Huck Chair in Plant Reproductive Development and Evolution at Penn State, is the co-editor of a new book, Regulation of Plant Development, recently published by Springer Nature. The book presents a synthesis of recent advances in plant vegetative growth and diverse aspects of reproductive development; serves as a comprehensive resource for students, postdocs and researchers in plant development; and provides an integrated reference for scientists advancing genetic improvement of crop plants for sustainability, according to Ma and co-editors.
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Jun 01, 2026
Q&A: Are plants the key to solving energy and food crises worldwide?
Changing market conditions are increasing the need for cost-effective ways to produce biorenewable chemicals, biofuels and materials that can serve as alternatives to oil-based products. According to Costas Maranas, Robert V. & Gloria H. Waltemeyer Chair and Donald B. Broughton Professor of Chemical Engineering at Penn State, solutions to these problems could come from applying tools used in synthetic biology to plants and their microbial partners across the globe.
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