News
May 22, 2026
Q&A: Ebola outbreak and public health emergency
This week, the World Health Organization declared an international public health emergency due to an outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The outbreak, which has already killed more than 100 people, took longer to identify as the virus species is different than the species typically responsible for Ebola outbreaks. There is no vaccine for this species of Ebolavirus, but researchers are testing the effectiveness of a vaccine for a different species of the virus, according to Ebola expert Nita Bharti, associate professor of biology and Lloyd Huck Early Career Professor at Penn State.
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May 22, 2026
College of Medicine appoints Indira Mysorekar to vice dean role
Penn State College of Medicine has appointed Indira U. Mysorekar, as vice dean for research, basic science and graduate studies within the Office of Research, Graduate Studies and Innovation, effective July 1. She will also be the Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Chair in Medicine and professor of medicine and of cell and biological systems.
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May 22, 2026
Novel biogel may solve a hairy problem for wearable brain-monitoring systems
A vital tool for healthcare practitioners, electroencephalography (EEG) systems measure electrical activity in the brain through electrodes placed on the scalp, but getting reliable readings can be surprisingly difficult. Hair interferes with contact between the electrodes and skin, and the gels used to improve those connections often dry out over time, weakening signal quality. Researchers at Penn State have developed a reusable material designed to solve both problems at once. The material is a thermoreversible semiconducting ionic biogel, meaning it becomes liquid when gently heated so it can move through hair and reach the scalp, then returns to a stable gel as it cools, keeping its conducting and semiconducting character.
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May 19, 2026
New Beescape updates include county-level plant recommendations for pollinators
Penn State’s Beescape tool is gaining a new feature that allows users to download county-specific lists of pollinator-attractive plants, offering a more localized approach to improving pollinator habitats across Pennsylvania. The feature, developed by a multidisciplinary team of researchers at Penn State’s Center for Pollinator Research in the College of Agricultural Sciences, allows users to generate lists of plants tailored to ecological conditions at the county level.
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May 18, 2026
$3M NIH grant to support research on memory and exaggerated fear responses
Experiencing a traumatic event sometimes produces long-lasting biological changes that can lead to an exaggerated fear response to future stressful events, such as what occurs in individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder. To better understand the regulatory mechanisms in the brain that produce this biological memory and exaggerated fear response, a team of researchers from Penn State and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has been awarded a grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Mental Health.
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May 18, 2026
Worker bumble bees help determine which baby bee will become queen
Every bumble bee colony has a queen, but a new study led by researchers at Penn State suggests the process of determining which baby bee reigns supreme may be less monarchal than the royal title suggests. The study explored why some bumble bee larvae become workers and others become queens, despite coming from the same eggs.
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May 15, 2026
Stretchy implants could stick to arteries to treat high blood pressure
High blood pressure, formally known as hypertension, is a leading cause of heart disease in the United States, impacting nearly half of all adults. Approximately one in 10 of these patients experience drug-resistant hypertension that can be difficult to address, but according to researchers at Penn State, tiny devices that gently shock one of the body's most critical arteries could offer effective treatment.
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May 12, 2026
Q&A: What can plant evolution teach people about breeding better crops?
May 22 is United Nations International Day for Biological Diversity, drawing attention to a critical resource for developing crops that are resilient or resistant to extreme weather and other threats to their health, according to Jesse Lasky, associate professor of biology at Penn State.
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May 12, 2026
College of Ag Sciences, FAO mark one-year anniversary of Youth Food Lab
Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences welcomed a delegation from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, or FAO, to University Park last week to mark the first anniversary of the World Food Forum Youth Food Lab North America at Penn State partnership and to explore opportunities to deepen collaboration on global agrifood systems, innovation and education.
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May 11, 2026
Q&A: Is AI democratizing global health or reinforcing old inequities?
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the tools that are central to global health decision-making in areas like disease control policies, financing and vaccination strategies, such as infectious disease modeling. This brings new opportunities to the modeling landscape, but could also exacerbate existing disparities, according to Matt Ferrari, professor of biology and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at the Huck Institutes of Life Sciences at Penn State.
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