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Using law to support innovation

Using law to support innovation

From protecting artists to supporting emerging technologies, second- and third-year students working in Penn Carey Law’s Detkin Intellectual Property and Technology Legal Clinic provide free legal work to individuals and nonprofit and for-profit ventures in science, technology, business, and the arts.

From Penn Carey Law

2 min. read

Gene therapy ‘switch’ may offer non-addictive pain relief
Scan of human amygdala.

Image: nopparit via Getty Images

Gene therapy ‘switch’ may offer non-addictive pain relief

In a preclinical study, Penn Medicine researchers have uncovered a new gene therapy that targets only pain signals while leaving the rest of the brain untouched.

Eric Horvath

2 min. read

An AI tool to help better understand medical visits
Kevin Johnson seated at his desk with a computer and Karen O'Connor, seated at his desk, both testing the new equipment.

Kevin Johnson, left, demonstrating the recording process with Karen O’Connor, right.

(Image: Sylvia Zhang)

An AI tool to help better understand medical visits

Penn Engineering’s multimodal medical dataset, Observer, links video, audio, and transcripts to clinical data and electronic health records.

Ian Scheffler

2 min. read

Can reminders help you save more money?

Can reminders help you save more money?

Wharton’s Katy Milkman has led a megastudy on 2 million U.S. bank customers, showing that regular reminders to save encouraged people to put money aside.

From Knowledge at Wharton

1 min. read

Awards and accolades for Penn faculty
College Hall seen through the archway of Fischer Fine Arts.

nocred

Awards and accolades for Penn faculty

A roundup of appointments and awards for various members of Penn’s faculty across several schools.

2 min. read

Lifesaving breakthrough in bacterial behavior
Artist's rendering of bacteria moving through a nanofabricated tube.

(Pictured) An artist’s depiction of a single cell moving through the nanofabricated mictostrucures biophysicist Arnold Mathijssen’s team used to study E. coli.

(Image: Courtesy of Ruoshui Liu/Cylos Studio)

Lifesaving breakthrough in bacterial behavior

Bacteria can actively swim upstream, leading to severe infections in places like the urinary tract and respiratory system and contamination of medical devices like catheters. Biophysicist Arnold Mathijssen and colleagues have uncovered how and why this happens, revealing that E. coli actually “thrives under pressure.” Their findings point to new strategies for designing safer, more effective biomedical tools and treatments.

3 min. read

Three ways to reframe boredom
A person sleeping at their desk.

Image: iStock/cyano66

Three ways to reframe boredom

In modern society, boredom is largely considered a bad thing. Stephen M. Gorn Family Assistant Professor of English Lilith Todd thinks people can reframe how to think about being idle.

From Omnia

2 min. read

20 breakthroughs of 2025
Masoud Akbarzadeh holding up one of the fabricated materials.

The Polyhedral Structures Laboratory is housed at the Pennovation Center and brings together designers, engineers, and computer scientists to reimagine the built world. Using graphic statics, a method where forces are mapped as lines, they design forms that balance compression and tension. These result in structures that use far fewer materials while remaining strong and efficient.

(Image: Eric Sucar)

20 breakthroughs of 2025

From ancient tombs and tiny robots to personalized gene editing and AI weather models, Penn’s 2025 research portfolio showed how curiosity—paired with collaboration—moves knowledge into impact and stretches across disciplines and continents.

5 min. read

New AI tool helps doctors to sift and synthesize patient data

New AI tool helps doctors to sift and synthesize patient data

An AI-guided platform at Penn Medicine allows clinicians to quickly and easily unearth pertinent information from patients’ electronic health records that otherwise might have been difficult to find.