Featured Stories
Penn State biochemist Denise Okafor awarded 2026 Sloan Research Fellowship
Denise Okafor, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and of chemistry and Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Early Career Chair in Biophysics at Penn State, has been honored with 2026 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship. Awarded annually since 1955, the fellowship honors extraordinary researchers whose creativity, innovation and research accomplishments make them stand out as the next generation of scientific leaders.
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Skeleton ‘gatekeeper’ lining brain cells could guard against Alzheimer’s
Brain cells are constantly swallowing material from the fluid that surrounds them — signaling molecules, nutrients, even pieces of their own surfaces — in a process known as endocytosis that is essential for learning, memory and basic neural upkeep. New research by Penn State scientists has revealed this vital process may be governed by a previously unknown molecular gatekeeper: a lattice‑like structure just beneath the surface of neurons called the membrane‑associated periodic skeleton.
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Domestication has changed the chemicals squash flowers use to attract bees
In a new study published in the Journal of Chemical Ecology, a team led by researchers in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences found that domesticated flowers have different scent chemical profiles than wild plants in several species of squash. Additionally, the specialized pollinators of these plants—squash bees—detect different compounds, called floral volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in wild plants that they co-evolved with than in domesticated plants.
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News
Mar 05, 2026
Sending a 'We Are!' to these Penn Staters — March 5
As part of our regular “We Are!” feature, we recognize 18 Penn Staters who have gone above and beyond what’s asked of them in their work at the University. This week, on behalf of the entire Penn State community, we’d like to say thank you to...
Mar 05, 2026
IST names Cai, Huang and Lee to lead college’s first academic departments
Huck co-hire Sharon Huang has been named head of the Department of Informatics and Intelligent Systems, one of the inaugural departments recently established in Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology.
Mar 05, 2026
Inaugural Penn State-Ghana Seed Grant Program awardees announced
The inaugural Penn State-Ghana Research Partnerships Seed Grant Program has awarded nine projects that aim to fuel global impact, including crop disease surveillance, removing heavy metals from mining wastewater and understanding multimodal traffic streams.
News
Mar 05, 2026
Sending a 'We Are!' to these Penn Staters — March 5
As part of our regular “We Are!” feature, we recognize 18 Penn Staters who have gone above and beyond what’s asked of them in their work at the University. This week, on behalf of the entire Penn State community, we’d like to say thank you to...
Mar 05, 2026
IST names Cai, Huang and Lee to lead college’s first academic departments
Huck co-hire Sharon Huang has been named head of the Department of Informatics and Intelligent Systems, one of the inaugural departments recently established in Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology.
Mar 05, 2026
Inaugural Penn State-Ghana Seed Grant Program awardees announced
The inaugural Penn State-Ghana Research Partnerships Seed Grant Program has awarded nine projects that aim to fuel global impact, including crop disease surveillance, removing heavy metals from mining wastewater and understanding multimodal traffic streams.
Mar 04, 2026
2026-27 Huck Seed Grant Program opens call for proposals
The Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences is calling for 2026-27 Seed Grant Program funding proposals, due by May 1. Huck seed grants foster innovative, interdisciplinary and collaborative life sciences research with the potential to drive scientific breakthroughs and generate new research directions leading to impactful externally funded research.
Events
Monday Mar
16
Advanced Cell Culture Workshop
Sartorius Cell Culture Facility
Monday Mar
16
Evolutionary and Functional Genomics of Parasitic Plants (Cancelled)
Plant Biology Seminar Series
Plant Biology
Wednesday Mar
18
Ideas Lab: Aging, Alzheimer's Disease and AI
Neuroscience Institute , Neuroscience
Events
Monday Mar
16
Advanced Cell Culture Workshop
Sartorius Cell Culture Facility
Monday Mar
16
Evolutionary and Functional Genomics of Parasitic Plants (Cancelled)
Plant Biology Seminar Series
Plant Biology
Wednesday Mar
18
Ideas Lab: Aging, Alzheimer's Disease and AI
Neuroscience Institute , Neuroscience
Wednesday Mar
18
Schmidt Science Fellows 2027 Informational Session
Bioinformatics and Genomics , Ecology , Molecular Cellular and Integrative Biosciences , Neuroscience , Plant Biology