Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences

09/03/2026

As proteins are made in a cell, they are folded into the 3D structure that allows them to work, but sometimes this process can go wrong. When it does, the misfolded proteins lose some or all of their function and usually get tagged by the cell’s quality assurance and maintenance crews, which try to repair the proteins or, if they can’t, strip them to recycle their parts. A new study led by scientists at Penn State revealed that proteins containing a certain type of structure are more likely to misfold and be targeted for removal, yet nearly half still manage to evade the cellular maintenance crew. The misfolded proteins that persist could accumulate in cells, disrupting the balance of protein production and recycling and potentially contributing to aging and disease, according to the researchers.

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A new study led by Penn State scientists revealed that proteins containing a certain type of structure are more likely to misfold, yet nearly half still manage to evade the cellular maintenance crew that would typically remove the malfunctioning protein. The misfolded proteins that persist could acc...

09/02/2026

Farmers in West Africa have long used a mixture of traditional plants to reduce fungi in grain storage, but the true impact of this approach was unknown, according to an international team led by Penn State food scientists. Now, that team has found that a formulation made from an evergreen tree called neem, lemongrass, garlic and hot chili plants effectively inhibits the growth of two kinds of Fursarium fungus in corn.

Farmers in West Africa have long used a mixture of traditional plants to reduce fungi in grain storage, but the true impact of this approach was unknown, according to an international team led by Penn State food scientists. Now, that team has found that a formulation made from an evergreen tree call...

09/01/2026

Sepsis, a life-threatening condition that stems from the body trying to fight off an infection, plagues over 1.5 million patients a year in the U.S. alone, with one in three deaths recorded in the hospital attributed in part to sepsis. Despite the severity of the condition, which can kill in as little as 12 hours, it takes between two and seven days for most traditional approaches to definitively identify sepsis-causing bacteria in blood infections.

A team led by an engineer at Penn State has developed a way to condense the days-long diagnosis timeline to just hours. The new approach rapidly grows the bacteria present in collected blood samples, intermittently analyzing the samples with advanced techniques that help scientists identify the specific pathogens causing infection

A team led by an engineer at Penn State has developed a way to identify the bacteria responsible for a bloodstream infection — a main cause of sepsis. Using their new technique, the researchers condensed a days-long diagnosis timeline to just hours, potentially offering an approach that could help...

08/31/2026

What if, instead of spraying fields with undiscriminating pesticides, farmers could protect their crops by attracting the predators of the specific pests they're facing?

Different cover crops may affect how plants can defend themselves against pests — including attracting more insects that eat harmful caterpillars, according to a new study led by a Penn State research team that includes corresponding author Jared Ali, associate chair of the Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Ecology and director of the Huck's Center for Chemical Ecology.

Different cover crops may affect how plants can defend themselves against pests — including attracting more insects that eat harmful caterpillars, according to a new study led by researchers at Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.

08/28/2026

Neela Yennawar, research professor with the Huck Institutes and director of the X-Ray Crystallography and Scattering and Biomolecular Interactions Core Facilities, has been named the Huck's director of instrumentation grant initiatives.

Neela Yennawar, research professor with Penn State’s Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences and director of the X-Ray Crystallography and Scattering and Biomolecular Interactions Core Facilities, has been named the institutes' new director of instrumentation grant initiatives.

08/27/2026

Physical activity in adulthood may depend on exercise conducted while growing, according to a new study led by Penn State researchers. The study, conducted in birds, is the first to demonstrate directly that experiences during development influence how efficiently adults use energy during movement.

Moving efficiently may influence how animals evolve, explained Jonas Rubenson, professor of kinesiology at Penn State. The hypothesis is that animals who use less energy for movement have more energy available for mating, foraging, hunting or other activities needed for survival.

Extra physical work by birds as they grew resulted in less effortful movement as an adult, which may provide evidence that activity in childhood affects adult capacity in animals in general — including humans, according to a new study by Penn State researchers.

08/25/2026

A grass once considered a w**d is now helping redefine the putting green.

For more than 30 years, Penn State's David Huff, professor of turfgrass breeding and genetics, studied Poa annua — a grass generally dismissed as a nuisance but also counterintuitively, found on many of the world’s premier golf courses. His research ultimately led to a new “Goldilocks” strain that delivers the dense, fast-playing surface golfers prize, without requiring decades to establish.

He launched a new startup, PennPoa, in 2024 with the help of Penn State's entrepreneurship ecosystem to help take his research from the lab to golf courses across the country.

While they are on opposite sides of the country, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in New York and California’s Pebble Beach Golf Club have at least two things in common. They are both hosting the U.S. Open Golf tournament and they both now seed their greens with a w**d that most of the nation’s golf c...

08/24/2026

All living things have a fleet of tiny copy machines that turn instructions from DNA into RNA, the molecules responsible for helping build proteins that keep organisms alive. One of those nanoscale machines, called eukaryotic RNA polymerase II, performs a crucial early step required by nearly every biological process. It makes messages, copying and carrying instructions from the cell nucleus to make proteins.

Until recently, scientists had only witnessed the eukaryotic RNA at work in carefully assembled test tubes, stripped of the chaotic realities of life inside a cell. Now, a team led by Penn State researchers has captured a glimpse of this molecular machinery as it operates inside living organisms.

All living things have a fleet of tiny copy machines that turn instructions from DNA into RNA, the molecules responsible for helping build proteins that keep organisms alive. One of these, called eukaryotic RNA polymerase II, performs a crucial early step required by nearly every biological process....

08/21/2026

An interdisciplinary team of Penn State engineers and researchers that includes corresponding authors Dan Hayes, head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Chair in Nanotherapeutics and Regenerative Medicine; and Ibrahim Ozbolat, professor of engineering science and mechanics, of biomedical engineering, of neurosurgery and Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences Chair in 3D Bioprinting and Regenerative Medicine; has laid the groundwork to 3D print spheroids—tiny clusters of living cells—capable of regenerating bone tissue in response to severe trauma or infections.

By introducing different strands of genetic information into undifferentiated, commercially sourced stem cells, the team has demonstrated that bioprinting, which layers the fundamental building blocks of an organ tissue, can create cell clusters optimized to support bone tissue regeneration. The bioprinted spheroids are not just better at helping bone tissue heal, the researchers reported, but they also facilitate the successful formation of new blood vessels within generated tissue.

An interdisciplinary team of engineers and chemists at Penn State has laid the groundwork to 3D print spheroids — tiny clusters of living cells — capable of regenerating bone tissue in response to severe trauma or infections. The process layers the fundamental building blocks of an organ tissue,...

08/20/2026

New school year? New grad students. Around 50 life sciences graduate students, from the six Huck intercollegiate programs plus the Eberly College of Science's Biochemistry, Microbiology and Molecular Biology and Master of Biotechnology programs are taking part in orientation this week, starting the next chapter of their academic journeys. Welcome to Penn State!