Category: Research

Amber Alhadeff: Sensing Nutritional Health

Amber Alhadeff, PhD

Monell’s newest faculty member brings the power of neuroscience to a pressing question: Why do we overeat? You could say that Amber Alhadeff, PhD, has a gut feeling about her new appointment to Monell’s faculty. Alhadeff, a behavioral neurobiologist who…

Meet the Postdocs: Part 3

Drs. Spencer and Bell

Welcome to the third installment of our series on Monell’s postdoctoral fellows. We persuaded two more postdocs to put down their work for a few minutes to talk with us about everything from food to Philadelphia’s winter weather. Click here…

Fighting Bitter, Saving Children’s Lives

Medicine Only Works If You Take It Using a potentially transformative approach that combines cell-based taste biology with human sensory science, Monell scientists believe they can help solve a deadly problem. Over two million people in the developing world –…

Dealing with Those Telltale Malodors

By educating physicians about unique properties of the olfactory system, Monell scientist Pamela Dalton seeks to increase understanding of stigmas associated with incontinence Vanilla, honeysuckle, a baby’s head… diesel. When asked to name her favorite smell, Pamela Dalton responds without…

Sensing a Stronger Voice

One might wonder what a speech-language pathologist is doing at the Monell Center, with its half-century of focus on the chemical senses of taste and smell. Well, to Center postdoctoral fellow Carolyn Novaleski, PhD, it makes perfect sense. As a…

Meet the Postdocs, Part 2

Welcome to the second installment of our series on Monell’s extraordinary postdoctoral fellows. We managed to coax another two postdocs out of their labs to speak with us about everything from science to pasta; from improving human health to Mozart.…

Changing Taste

Knowing how taste cells regenerate opens doors to improving nutritional health Imagine a day when taste cells, once lost, can be restored. Cancer patients who, post treatment, no longer enjoy the pleasure of taste could again savor food, as could…

Researching Smell, From Someone Who Can’t

Daniel Schein was born without a sense of smell, a condition known as “congenital anosmia.” Wanting to learn more about anosmia, he spent the last two summers researching olfaction as a volunteer in Johannes Reisert’s lab. We asked Daniel, currently…