News Archive | Penn Today

Person sitting at a table with blurry people in front and a screen hanging on the wall behind, which reads, "Experiential effects on brain development."

Five insights into how the brain works

As the Center for Neuroscience & Society celebrates 10 years, founding director Martha Farah reflects on the array of research from its faculty, on subjects from brain games to aggression.

a line of cylinders with used water filters on a bench outside

How to make a better water filter? Turn it inside out

Penn engineers describe a novel approach for making antimicrobial nanoscale water filters while demonstrating new approaches that can be used to develop a broad range of materials.

Amy Gutmann and Toni Morrison seated on stage with flags behind them

Penn remembers and celebrates Toni Morrison

The Penn community recalls the life and legacy of renowned author and teacher Toni Morrison, H‘88.

a gloved hand holds a glass film with blood sample underneath beneath a microscope

Looking into the immune system to better fight disease

A rare, short-lived population of immune cells in the bloodstream may serve as ‘periscopes’ to monitor immune status via lymph nodes deep inside the body, researchers say.

The Huh lab’s eye-on-a-chip attached to a motorized, gelatin-based eyelid.

Blinking eye-on-a-chip used for disease modeling and drug testing

Penn Engineering’s Dan Huh and Jeongyun Seo built an eye model that could imitate a healthy eye and an eye with dry eye disease, allowing them to test an experimental drug without risk of human harm.

Person holding a cellphone with a lit up image of a car emanating from it.

Minding the gap between mass transit and ride-hailing apps

With support from the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, doctoral students Caitlin Gorback and Summer Dong are researching how services like Uber and Lyft are changing our transport habits, cities, and environments.

a person in a hard had working inside a large telescope detector

In search of signals from the early universe

Penn astronomers are part of an international collaboration to construct the Simons Observatory, a new telescope that will search the skies in a quest to learn more about the formation of the universe.

Student standing with historic buildings behind her.

Engaging history

Junior Margarita Ortiz conducted a comprehensive survey of 18 sites as a summer intern for the Historic Germantown consortium in her hometown of Philadelphia.

Three stages of Alzheimers portrayed by three scans of neurons

The brain’s amyloid buildup is not a powerful indicator of Alzheimer’s disease

Researchers find fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET, which measures the brain’s glucose consumption as a marker of neural activity, is a better indicator of cognitive performance when compared to PET scans that detect amyloid proteins.

A cohort study comes of age

For nearly two decades, a major national study of kidney disease led and coordinated at Penn has defined key risk factors in an all-too-common silent epidemic.

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