School of Engineering & Applied Science

Penn Engineers Develop $2 Portable Zika Test

University of Pennsylvania engineers have developed a rapid, low-cost genetic test for the Zika virus. The $2 testing device, about the size of a soda can, does not require electricity or technical expertise to use. A patient would simply provide a saliva sample. Color-changing dye turns blue when the genetic assay detects the presence of the virus.

Evan Lerner

Two Penn Seniors to Aid Parkinson’s Patients With Innovative Motion-tracking Device

This is the first of two features introducing the University of Pennsylvania’s 2016 President’s Innovation Prize winners. A rough estimate of the amount of steps taken in a day might be enough for the average fitness tracker or smartwatch user, but, for people with movement disorders like Parkinson’s disease, more fine-grained data could be life changing.

Evan Lerner



In the News


Philadelphia Inquirer

Comcast’s Sports Complex plan for South Philly would make our city less livable

In an Op-Ed, Vukan R. Vuchic of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says that Philadelphia should make transit more accessible rather than striving to accommodate more cars.

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Big Think

Can we stop AI hallucinations? And do we even want to?

Chris Callison-Burch of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says that auto-regressive generation can make it difficult for language learning models to perform fact-based or symbolic reasoning.

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CNET

How the solar eclipse will affect solar panels and the grid

Benjamin Lee of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says that the electrical grid will have to figure out how to match supply and demand during brief windows where the energy source goes away.

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The New York Times

Can your personal medical devices be recycled?

A lab at the School of Engineering and Applied Science led the development of a COVID test made from bacterial cellulose, an organic compound.

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CNBC

Students can soon major in AI at this Ivy League university—it’ll prepare them for ‘jobs that don’t yet exist’

The Raj and Neera Singh Program in Artificial Intelligence at Penn will be the first AI undergraduate engineering major at an Ivy League school, led by George Pappas of the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

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