Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences

It was late January 2020 when Maciej Boni realized that the COVID-19 pandemic was about to take over his life. Boni, associate professor of biology, is an epidemiologist with extensive expertise in viral evolution, including a recent focus on human and avian flu. When COVID-19 hit, he tapped into a network of colleagues around the world, quickly joining an international team intent on tracking the outbreak to its origins.

Researchers at Penn State and the University of Minnesota have developed a statistical tool that can accurately estimate the replicability of a study, thus eliminating the need to duplicate the work and effectively mitigating the reproducibility crisis.

This week in #PennState news: Ferrari named director of Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics http://ow.ly/oJvw50E9DIz Hand-dipped ice cream is back at Berkey ...Creamery beginning March 22 http://ow.ly/7awZ50E9DIy Things to Do at Penn State: March 25-April 1 http://ow.ly/qDEA50E9DIx Class of 2025: A Penn State education will set you up for success http://ow.ly/LZyN50E9DIw Penn State Berks snowboarder emerges victorious in World Championships http://ow.ly/Wnm550E9DIv Deaf Penn State professor Shasta Dreese teaches ASL classes to ‘break down the communication barriers’ (via Daily Collegian) https://www.collegian.psu.edu//article_a28ff130-8b6a-11eb- Task force advances work to mitigate food and housing insecurities https://news.psu.edu//task-force-advances-work-mitigate-fo Students hope care packages will brighten the day for frontline workers http://ow.ly/I7QN50E9DIB Story of Wally Triplett, 1st Black football player to start for Penn State, to be made into movie -- (via TribLIVE) https://triblive.com//story-of-wally-triplett-penn-states/ Coronavirus FAQ: Where can I go for walk-up testing? http://ow.ly/T08y50E9DIA

A more accurate measurement and interpretation of gene activities, using large volumes of sequencing data, may be possible with a new computational framework and set of algorithms currently being developed by Penn State researchers. A five-year, $1.85 million grant from the National Institutes of Health is funding the research led by Mingfu Shao, the Charles K. Etner Early Career Assistant Professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

A new antibiotic compound clears infection of multi-drug resistant gonorrhea in mice in a single oral dose, according to a new study led by researchers at Penn State and Emory University. The compound targets a molecular pathway found in bacteria but not humans and could lead to new treatments for gonorrhea and infections from other bacteria, such as tuberculosis and MRSA.